Boss eyes Crewe as perfect chance for West Ham to bounce back from Swansea woe

West Ham boss Sam Allardyce has urged his team to cut out the errors as they prepare to host Crewe Alexandra in the second round of the Capital One Cup tomorrow.

The Hammers will get a quick chance to atone for their 3-0 defeat at Swansea in the Premier League on Saturday when two defensive errors contributed to their downfall.

Their cup opponents had an equally rough ride at the weekend as they had five put past them by Brentford in League One, but Allardyce is called for his men to bounce back against the Railywaymen.

“We’ve got to make sure that those kind of errors don’t creep into our game again,” he told the club’s website.

“Where we were so good at the back last week against Aston Villa we were dreadful this week. The Premier League is unforgiving and if you make those kind of errors you’re going to get punished for them. We’ve now got a very important game against Crewe where we’ve got to try to bounce back before Fulham at home.”

Allardyce is expected to shuffle his pack for the cup clash and that could mean first starts for the likes of Stephen Henderson, Modibo Maiga and Alou Diarra, with a couple of Academy graduates included as well to help aid their development

The manager said: “We’ve got a hugely-experienced group of players to play on Tuesday night and that will provide an opportunity to get as many minutes for them as some of the other players.

“We’ve got new signings like Maiga and Diarra that we can give a game to too. They can play with people like Joey O’Brien, Nick Maynard and Ricardo Vaz Te, who could all feature.

“We’ll have an experienced squad that should have enough to beat Crewe and get us through to the next round.

“Our priority is the Premier League as always, but what it does is offer the players who are disappointed about not playing is the chance to play in a very good competition.

“It tells me where they are and are they staking a claim to get in the first team to play as early as Fulham next week. I’m hoping the players make a statement to me on Tuesday that says I’ve got to play them in the first team against Fulham next week.”