Manager on Monday

After watching his side slip to defeat against Crystal Palace on Saturday, West Ham United manager Sam Allardyce is looking to ensure his side's place in the Barclays Premier League as soon as possible.

A Mile Jedinak penalty after 59 minutes was enough to send the Hammers to a narrow loss at the Boleyn Ground and leaves the Club on 37 points with three games left to play.

The Eagles' victory secured their place in the top-flight for next season, but means Big Sam's team head to West Bromwich Albion next weekend looking to pick up the points that will also see them mathematically safe. If a win is secured, the manager knows his planning for next season can begin in earnest.

"At the end of every season, at every club I've been at, the squad has never been good enough at the end of the season because you simply have to get better," said Big Sam.

"The minute you don't get better is the minute that you fall into massive trouble at this level. All the others will go out improve, spend money and bring better players in so every team has to improve season in, season out. 

"We have to improve when we've finished this season and hopefully we'll have picked up a few more points. As soon as we're mathematically safe we can start thinking about what we can and cannot do."

Big Sam admiited he shared the fans' frustrations during a testing afternoon in East London, where the Club paid tribute to Dylan Tombides, who sadly passed away on Friday. The manager will be all too aware that he has the perfect opportunity to put that right when neighbours Tottenham Hotspur visit the Boleyn Ground in less than two weeks' time.

"Fans are entitled to air their frustrations. They want to see the team win, they want to see the team go out and beat the opposition and score goals. When you get frustrated like they did, it's because the opposition frustrate you with the way they play and they play that way very well.

"If you don't break it down then everyone's frustrations boil over a little bit. I thought that when our players went a goal down they let themselves become frustrated as well and stopped doing the things they were doing before we went a goal down. We should be patient enough and skilful enough to break down that stubborn Crystal Palace unit.

"I thought the fans did a grand job before the game [during the tributes to Dylan] and they paid their hard-earned money to come and watch us play and try and win a game of football. They want you to win, they want you to score goals, and we didn't do that.

"In many ways we let ourselves down and we let them down because even though we knew what Crystal Palace were going to play like, we knew we had to be good enough and patient enough to break that down, but sadly we weren't."