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Sam Allardyce will be forced to sell before he can boost his squad with new arrivals, says co-owner David Sullivan.

Yesterday, Allardyce landed his fourth first team signing of pre-season when Stewart Downing joined fellow summer arrivals Adrian, Razvan Rat and Andy Carroll*.

However the West Ham boss is unlikely to make any further additions to his squad unless he can move one or two players on first, as a result of the new Financial Fair Play rules.

"We still need a few [players], but we just haven't got the money," Sullivan explained in an exclusive interview with KUMB.com. "In my programme notes for Cardiff I've explained how the wage cap works and how once you've spent your wages, you've spent your wages.

"This is why I've said to the manager at every stage: "This is what we've got left, do you want to spend your money on this player?" I said to Sam [before he signed Downing]: "If you spend the money on this player then there's very, very little left and you'll have to move somebody out to get somebody in".

"If you breach your wage limit, you get a points deduction - so what you need and what you have to live with are not the same thing. It's not a question of us having to find another couple of million to put in, because we've done that anyway already on transfers this summer. You are allowed to do it on transfers, but on wages you're not."

And Sullivan revealed that the signing of Downing had taken West Ham very close to their £52million wage budget limit.

"That's it, unfortunately. Now we've signed Downing we've got virtually nothing left. Somebody has to go to produce some spare wage capacity. I'd like the supporters to understand because people don't understand it and they just think, "oh get your cheque book out" - you can't, you're not allowed to under the rules.

"Our total wage budget is £52million. If you spent £180million last year, you can spend £184million - but as we didn't spend £52million last year, that's it. That includes national insurance.

"It's not a lot."

* Fifth summer signing Danny Whitehead is with the Under 21s and not considered a first team squad player.

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