West Ham Allardyce: win over Southampton means survival

West Ham boss Sam Allardyce challenges his players to secure the victory over Southampton in their forthcoming Premier League fixture to guarantee the safety.

The Hammers took a step closer to retaining their Premier League status this season last week, when they held Liverpool to a scoreless draw at Anfield. Allardyce reckons his team needs to get three points to reach a 40-point mark that secures survival and the game against the Saints is the best opportunity to accomplish the task.

Big Sam said: “They will be full of confidence. The fans will be expecting to beat us, there’s no doubt about that, after they’ve just beaten Liverpool and Chelsea at home. I think we’ll just be the next step on the ladder for them to beat. I thought the Liverpool fans probably thought they were turning up and going to beat us last week, so we’ll hopefully spoil Southampton’s party as well.”

No team since 2002/2003 season has suffered the agony of relegation with 40 or more points. Allardyce said: “If we win it, I think we’ll be safe. I know mathematically people will say we can still be caught and somebody could still overtake us but I find it difficult to believe that anybody would. Over the 20-odd years there are only a few cases of teams going down with 40 but it has been a long time since that was actually the case.”