Big Sam targets Wigan win

Sam Allardyce has made the most of his two full days of training to finalise his plans for Tuesday night's Capital One Cup tie with Wigan Athletic at the Boleyn Ground.

After digesting the impressive stats provided by the Hammers' performance in Saturday's Barclays Premier League 1-1 draw with Sunderland, which are detailed below, the West Ham United manager is likely to make several changes to his starting XI. The whole squad were back in early on Sunday morning for a warm down before a full day of training on Monday, which will have given Big Sam a greater indication of who will be in best shape for facing the Latics.

"There are players that are frustrated on our substitutes' bench. Obviously, Modibo Maiga will come into the fray," Allardyce said. "He's come on as sub again and is still feeling his way in. Wigan's going to be a great game and there's not too much pressure on both teams, because it's the Capital One Cup.

"I'm sure they'll make seven or eight changes like they did against Nottingham Forest in the last round. We'll make some changes based on George McCartney, James Tomkins, Alou Diarra, Maiga, Gary O'Neil, Matt Jarvis. We've got loads of players who can play."

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Tuesday's matchday squad is set to bolstered by the inclusion of some of West Ham United Development Squad members , who will be full of confidence following their stunning 4-1 win against Arsenal on Friday evening. Robert Hall, George Moncur and Matthias Fanimo all got a taste of competitive football at the Boleyn Ground in the 2-0 win against Crewe Alexandra in the Capital One Cup second round.

"We can look at the under-21 squad, which is the new development league this year," Allardyce said. "We beat Arsenal 4-1 and I have to look at some of those players, because some of the reports are saying these players are looking very, very good from a football point of view.

"So we'll have an experienced side out with a splattering of young players, and hopefully if those young players get a chance they will deliver a performance that will excite us all.

"The players that get selected who haven't played in the first team quite as much will show what they've got and make a claim for a first-team place as quickly as possible."

Tickets for the Wigan game will be available on the gate from the Alpari Stad ticket office and cost just £15 for Adults and £8 for Kids.

Meanwhile, independent statistics show that West Ham United thoroughly dominated all areas of Saturday's fixture with Sunderland.

The statistics, which are printed below, show the Hammers completed more passes, had more shots on target, put in more crosses, had more final-third and penalty area entries and ran further than the Black Cats.

However, a combination of outstanding goalkeeping and defending and wayward finishing meant West Ham had to settle for a 1-1 draw at the Boleyn Ground.

Head of performance analysis David Woodfine explained: "People will obviously look at the result first and foremost, but this can hide the fact that the team has played extremely well without being rewarded.

"It is clear to see from the statistics below that we have dominated possession, worked harder and created a far larger number of goalscoring opportunities than our opponents.

"As the manager Sam Allardyce has said, on another day we would have converted any number of the numerous chances that we created and we would have been reflecting on a totally different scoreline.

"This takes nothing away from the fighting spirit and resilience shown by the lads against an established and seasoned Barclays Premier League side in Sunderland.

"It would have been easy to give up and think it was not going to be our day when we missed chances, but we persisted and stuck to the manager's plans and were rewarded when Kevin Nolan scored his superbly-taken goal."

The npower Championship Play-Off winners have lost only two of their previous 27 matches in all competitions and, after five Barclays Premier League games, sit ninth in the table.

Big Sam's newly-promoted side have also lost just one of their previous 18 home games in league and cup dating back to 3 December 2011.

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*All statistics are provided by Amisco (incorporating ProZone), the world leader company in sports match analysis, tracking technology and data creation.