Manager on Monday

West Ham United manager Sam Allardyce was delighted with the team effort that secured his team's fourth consecutive win in the Barclays Premier League against Southampton at the Boleyn Ground on Saturday.

Big Sam was left praising the contribution from all members of his team after goals from Matt Jarvis, Carlton Cole and captain Kevin Nolan fired the Hammers to a 3-1 victory against the Saints.

The east Londoners have now gone five games without defeat since a 0-0 draw against Chelsea on 29 January and Allardyce was delighted that goals are starting to come from all areas of the team.

"It's always about sharing goals around the team and if you share the right amount of goals it gets you into the right position in the league," he explained. "One thing we've turned around and why we're doing so well at the moment is that we've stopped, apart from Saturday, conceding from set-plays.

"In the last eight or ten games we've started scoring some goals from set-plays and open play and kept clean sheets once we've had our defence back together. That was always a recipe for winning football matches.

"The quality of our front play and our final third play is key now. We're resilient defensively but our final third play is getting much, much better now and of course our finishing is in a top-ten position in terms of the chances that we're turning into goals."

Before the team's current run of four wins from five games, the Hammers occupied a place in the relegation zone. After Saturday's victory against the Saints, Allardyce's side moved up to tenth in the Premier League and the manager believes that the battling performance at Stamford Bridge was a turning point for his side.

"When you go to a Chelsea when you've been struggling away from home, and you see a performance where you put your body on the line and do whatever you need to do to stop the opposition scoring and you come out of there with a point, then you can build from there.

"That started it, then when you win against Swansea with ten men it lifts everybody. The new players that have come in all have a small factor in building everybody's confidence, even though the new guys haven't played very much.

"It also adds pressure in terms of challenging for places which is always a very healthy position. It's not a sprint, it's a marathon and it's not where you are after five, ten, 15 or 20 games, it's where you are after 38 games."