West Ham boss eyeing Aston Villa, Fulham & Sunderland performance levels against Southampton

By Tom Moore Friday, October 19, 2012
10:03 AM

West Ham manager Sam Allardyce is hoping that his side can maintain their good home form against Southampton.

The Hammers have beaten Aston Villa and Fulham, while they drew with Sunderland and lost to Arsenal at Upton Park this campaign.

They were especially clinical against the west Londoners, racing into a three goal lead by half-time and Allardyce is looking for history to repeat itself on Saturday.

“Our confidence is also very high because we have been very good at home,” he said.

I am hoping to see the same kind of performance that I saw against Aston Villa, Fulham and Sunderland.

“If we play like that we will create opportunities and have a very good chance of winning the game.”

Southampton have scored 12 goals but have conceded 20 so far this season but Allardyce refuted the fact that they had forwards who were of Premier League standard and defenders who were Championship standard.

“I don’t know and I do not think Nigel Adkins will look at in that way,” the West Ham boss added. “Perhaps you in the media look at it that way because they have scored and conceded a lot of goals.

“There are two ways of playing the game and that is in possession and out of it. If you do not get both right you do not win.

“What you do out of possession in the Barclays Premier League is just as important as what you do with it, especially during your first season.

“If you can get both of those on an equal par you will do well. It is usually more difficult to score goals than it is to concede.

“Southampton have found it easier to score but in doing so they have left a lot of gaps. We suffered the same problem against Arsenal.

“As we got better in possession they hit us on the break twice and we found ourselves 3-1 down.”

The Saints only have four points from their first seven games, while the Hammers have 11.

However, the south coast club have already played Manchester City, Manchester United, Arsenal and Everton, while the Hammers have only face the Gunners.

And Allardyce knows that they have had a relatively easy start to life back in the Premier League.

He explained: “What I do think is that we have coped with the Premier League very well at the start of this season and I also think we had a group of fixtures that were less challenging than Southampton’s.

“From a Premier League point of view our experience is probably better than theirs so hopefully that will be a telling factor on Saturday.”