Sam Allardyce has praised the way his players have improved their results away from home and believes it has been vital the Hammers’ Premier League safety.
Before the 1-0 victory at Stoke last month the Hammers had lost eight consecutive games on the road and were beginning to flirt dangerously with a relegation battle.
But Allardyce’s men have since ground out two important draws at Liverpool and Southampton to add to the win at the Britannia, allowing them to look towards the top half of the table rather than looking over their shoulder.
He told whufc.com: “We went to Stoke City a few weeks ago having lost eight away games on the trot and I said to the lads if you want to make sure we are where we want to be – going towards the top half – you’re going to have to put the away results right.
“From thereon we’ve won one, drawn two and only lost one, so to put five points out of 12 on the board has made all the difference for us and kept the pressure off us from maybe sliding down towards the bottom four.
“It was another precious point on Saturday. The conditions were very difficult weather-wise, it was like the middle of winter out there, and of course Southampton were in good form at home, which we nullified.”
And Allardyce admits a slight adaptation to his tactics has been a big factor in the club’s improved away form and believes they could have taken all three points against Southampton.
“The overal tactics and the way we played was very good,” he said.
“We got what we deserved and if anything we might have got a winner. It was about us not surrendering too easily. I felt previously that we were being opened up too many times, we were surrendering possession and the opposition were just playing through us and round us and scoring goals.
“That had to stop, we had to become more resilient defensively as a unit. We had to be more mindful of our responsibilities, with the sill in this league, teams will take advantage if you leave gaps and spaces. We’ve put that right and it’s ended up getting us a few results.”
