Intro:

West Ham United coach Sam Allardyce looks ahead to Saturday's English Premier League game at home against Newcastle United (27th November).

Script:

SOUNDBITE (English) Sam Allardyce, West Ham United coach: (on West Ham's recent dip in results)

"Dealing with the games coming thick and fast going into the Christmas period is a massive test for us all. It defines how good we're going to be this season, so I'm hoping we're going to continue the level of performance that we are achieving, but I have to say that we haven't achieved the results that the performances that we've given (have deserved) and that's really disappointing because it's a results-driven industry and we have let ourselves slip in terms of points gained over the last three games."

SOUNDBITE (English) Sam Allardyce, West Ham United coach:  (on Newcastle's 6-game winning run)

"... I thought we coped very well last week, but still at the end of the day, we lost the game (2-1 at Everton), we didn't get a result, so it means that we've got to try and beat the most difficult team to play against in the Premier League at this moment in time, apart from Chelsea, for me. I think that Newcastle are the most difficult team to beat in the Premier League apart from Chelsea, on the form that they are showing at this moment in time, so it will be a massively big game for us on Saturday."

SOUNDBITE (English) Sam Allardyce, West Ham United coach:
(on how West Ham need to rediscover their spark up front)
"Play to our best. Play at home like we know we can against Manchester City and Liverpool and hopefully that will be enough to cause them (Newcastle) problems, but our cutting edge has, in the last tweo games, has gone missing. Our cutting edge at Aston Villa and our cutting edge at Everton is one of the reasons why we've stopped winning, so we've got to find our cutting edge finishing again."