West Ham United manager Sam Allardyce is going into Tuesday's match with Ipswich Town with just one intention - making sure that West Ham United stay top of the npower Championship.

The Hammers top of the table for the first time this season following the 2-1 win against Nottingham Forest last time out and now their manager is determined to remain there by leaving Suffolk with all three points. That job should be made easier by the expected return of Matt Taylor to the matchday squad following eight games out with a calf injury.

"The trick to stay at the top is to continue trying to make yourself better than what you've already been," Allardyce said. "There's no room for complacency, there's always room for improvement. Players will have to handle the extra bit of pressure that being on the top brings. It's something that we should be capable of accepting and starting on Tuesday we should be able to live under the microscope as it is what's been expected of us.

"We've had a long arduous catch up on Southampton as they started so well. Finally we've got within striking distance and due to their unusually poor performance when they lost to Leicester, we ended up getting three points ahead of them for the first time.

"Now it's about maintaining that and improving on that. Whether that can happen on Tuesday or not I don't know. There's 18 games to go after that and we know what we've got to try and achieve and clearly we'll do our very best to do that."

The Hammers sit three points clear of the second-placed Saints, who face a tricky-looking fixture at home to Cardiff City. Although that result will probably be the first he checks come the final whistle, Big Sam will only be concentrating on West Ham's performance up until then.

"We know what we've got to achieve irrespective of what the other results are. The object is being focused from day one. If we want to get up we'll need to get two points per game. At the moment, even though we're top of the league, we're one point behind our target.

"When you hit that target you want to get past it, then you'll maintain that position for automatic promotion irrespective of what other people do. The last five years has shown us that generally two points a game gets you automatic promotion, although there can be an unusual season where it's two points more or two points less."

Although Ipswich are on a seven-match winless run, Big Sam knows only too well the threat they pose after the Tractor Boys snuck a 1-0 win at the Boleyn Ground in September. Lee Bowyer's last-minute goal capped a fine display from Paul Jewell's side and Allardyce insists his own team must be on their game if they are to extend their winning streak in the league to four matches.

Paul Jewell and Big Sam have enjoyed plenty of duels down the years

"I can't believe how they're doing knowing Paul as well as I do and remembering how good his team was when they played at the Boleyn Ground that night. I thought they would go on to bigger and better things with the amount of experience they had in the team that night.

"For one reason or another they've lost their momentum and they've slipped away. Ipswich are obviously good at freescoring but they're not so good at keeping them out of the back of net. That's probably been Paul's problem - scoring goals but not having the resilience of not conceding them."

Tuesday also marks the closure of the January transfer window - a day when Big Sam will have to try and split his focus between securing top spot but and also making sure any last-minute deals are pushed through in time. The manager need not worry too much as he says he can rely on a trusted behind-the-scenes team should the right player become available.

"It could be difficult but I think but we have everybody in place. We have Andrew Pincher, our club secretary who does all the paperwork and gets the contracts in place, and David Sullivan is very active in negotiations. Then we have Martin Glover who is our head of recruitment and is the lad who pulls it all together in terms of whether it's going to get done or not.

"Everything gets agreed through them with me kept in the loop on the mobile. You can be where you want on the end of an email wherever nowadays, which really helps. I may choose to go down to Ipswich a little later on Tuesday but I have prepared the team and picked the team and told them I expect them to go there and continue our very good away record. After having an extra few days off they should be itching to get back on the pitch and get playing again."

In terms of possible new additions, Big Sam explained there were still options that West Ham were pursuing in the hope of concluding a deal before Tuesday's 11pm deadline.

"There's nothing that's absolutely concrete yet. We're in pursuit of one or two targets but I would be disappointed if we didn't have one of the targets we're pursuing at the moment. We've already had knockbacks on players on Monday morning that we were led to believe were available.

"The clubs have now changed their minds and they are not available. It tos and fros like that until the last hour of the deadline. Hopefully we'll secure one player to add to the squad but I'm comfortable with the squad I've got now. It's not quite up to full strength but we're not suffering the losses we endured in December. If I can bring someone in on the front line to help then great, otherwise I'm quite happy with what we got."