DUBAI // Sam Allardyce hopes his West Ham United side can return from a few days of warm-weather training in booming Dubai refreshed and ready to make their own progressive move.
Allardyce oversaw West Ham’s best start to a top-flight campaign in almost 30 years when they beat Leicester City 2-0 to sit fourth on Christmas Day.
Since then results have not matched performances.
Draws at Southampton and Tottenham Hotspur and a 1-0 defeat last week to Chelsea have played their part in West Ham collecting just one league win in 11 to slip to 10th.
West Ham, taking advantage of a rare free weekend courtesy of their fourth-round exit from the FA Cup, have been this week training at Dubai Sports City.
Allardyce is confident his squad will be rejuvenated when domestic action resumes on Saturday with a trip to the Emirates Stadium to face an Arsenal side that have seven league wins from a possible nine this year.
After that they host Sunderland and travel to Leicester City.
“If we play to our best, as we did against Chelsea and Tottenham, the next three games are all winnable,” Allardyce said.
“Unfortunately, against Chelsea we didn’t get what we wanted because we didn’t finish our chances and they scored an offside goal. But against Tottenham, we were only five seconds away from three points.
“So we can win and winning is the most important thing for us now. Performances have not been the problem, but you have to turn performances into victories.”
Allardyce has long been the subject of criticism from West Ham supporters, a fact the 60-year-old manager puts down to overachievement in his first year at the club when they finished 10th.
The London club at present is three points off eighth on 39 points with 10 games to play.
“We overachieved by four or five places [in our first year],” he said. “But when you overachieve you try to take advantage again and that equates to too much expectations, especially coming from your own fans.
"If we finish sixth in the league, that is like winning the Premier League. There is no doubt about that. To finish in sixth spot compared to the spending power of the rest of the teams in and around that area, that would be beyond a major achievement."
Allardyce, whose contract expires in the summer, has seen his future at Upton Park brought into question in recent days, with a switch to Sunderland mooted yesterday.
He is thinking, though, only about finishing strongly with West Ham.
“Eighth for us is achievable; we should already be there,” he said. “We should have already secured a lot more points, but we haven’t and that shows you the frailties of the squad.
“Even though our performances have been excellent, our victories have turned into draws and because of that we have slipped down the league a little bit.
“So I know the frailties, I’ve seen them and know what we need to do so those frailties don’t appear next season.
“For now though it’s about these last 10 games, securing as many points as possible and trying to hit the target of eighth in the league.”
gmeenAghan@thenational.ae
Follow us on Twitter @NatSportUAE
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(Toronto lead 3-1 in best-of-seven series_
Game 1 Raptors 118 Warriors 109
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Game 3 Warriors 109 Raptors 123
Game 4 Warriors 92 Raptors 105
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Engine: Direct injection 4-cylinder 1.4-litre
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Nepotism is the name of the game
Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad.
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Director:Shakun Batra
Stars:Deepika Padukone, Siddhant Chaturvedi, Ananya Panday, Dhairya Karwa
Rating: 4/5
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RESULTS
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EA Sports FC 25
Developer: EA Vancouver, EA Romania
Publisher: EA Sports
Consoles: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4&5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S
Rating: 3.5/5
Company%20Profile
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
ATP RANKINGS (NOVEMBER 4)
1. Rafael Nadal (ESP) 9,585 pts ( 1)
2. Novak Djokovic (SRB) 8,945 (-1)
3. Roger Federer (SUI) 6,190
4. Daniil Medvedev (RUS) 5,705
5. Dominic Thiem (AUT) 5,025
6. Stefanos Tsitsipas (GRE) 4,000 ( 1)
7. Alexander Zverev (GER) 2,945 (-1)
8. Matteo Berrettini (ITA) 2,670 ( 1)
9. Roberto Bautista (ESP) 2,540 ( 1)
10. Gaël Monfils (FRA) 2,530 ( 3)
11. David Goffin (BEL) 2,335 ( 3)
12. Fabio Fognini (ITA) 2,290
13. Kei Nishikori (JPN) 2,180 (-2)
14. Diego Schwartzman (ARG) 2,125 ( 1)
15. Denis Shapovalov (CAN) 2,050 ( 13)
16. Stan Wawrinka (SUI) 2,000
17. Karen Khachanov (RUS) 1,840 (-9)
18. Alex De Minaur (AUS) 1,775
19. John Isner (USA) 1,770 (-2)
20. Grigor Dimitrov (BUL) 1,747 ( 7)
GRAN%20TURISMO
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Jigra
Starring: Alia Bhatt, Vedang Raina, Manoj Pahwa, Harsh Singh
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Man of the match: Marcus Rashford (Manchester United)
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