Sam Allardyce: Crystal Palace must make quality signings or risk dropping into Championship
Sam Allardyce will return to West Ham with Crystal Palace on Saturday for what feels like a pivotal fixture for both clubs.
Allardyce is still waiting for his first win as Palace manager and Slaven Bilic is desperate for a victory after West Ham were comprehensively beaten 5-0 by Manchester City in the FA Cup on Friday.
Palace drew 0-0 at Bolton on Saturday and, after failing to beat a team two divisions below them, Allardyce said his task at Selhurst Park is “tough as hell”.
Allardyce has warned of the importance of the transfer window and pointed to the January signings that were crucial in helping Sunderland stay up last season.
Sunderland were one point worse off than Palace at this stage but four new additions made the difference.
Allardyce signed Lamine Kone, Jan Kirchhoff, Wahbi Khazri and Dame N’Doye.
Centre-backs Kone and Kirchhoff were crucial in making Sunderland more solid and Allardyce guided them to safety with 24 points from their last 18 fixtures.
The same return for Palace this season would take the Eagles to 40 points and should be enough to keep them in the Premier League.
“It is a similar position to when I was at Sunderland and we brought in four players that made all the difference,” said Allardyce.
“It is about getting two or three, but it is the quality of those. For clubs in our position, bringing in two or three quality players can be a lift to the whole group.
“In every window when you are in a position [like this] if you do not and the rest do, you are making your lives even more difficult. Everyone in the bottom six or eight will be looking to buy players to try and get out of the trouble. We have to compete, because if we do not we are making life difficult for ourselves to stay in the league.”
Just like at Sunderland, Allardyce is searching the market to make Palace more solid.
The draw against Bolton gave Palace a first clean sheet since Allardyce took over and the 62-year-old says “eight or nine” more between now and the end of the season will keep them up.
“We have got to sort out those clean sheets if we are going to get out of trouble,” he said. If I can get them to keep eight or nine clean sheets in the last 18 games we will be safe.”
Allardyce could have done without a replay against Bolton but, along with a clean sheet, he will have taken encouragement from the performance of Loic Remy.
Remy finally made his Palace debut five months after joining on loan from Chelsea and looked good for 45 minutes before he was taken off.
The 30-year-old, who failed to score a goal in 2016, hopes his injury problems are now behind him this season. “I feel completely fit having worked with the medical staff who did a great job with me so hopefully no more injuries for the rest of the season,” said Remy. “I really want to help the team as much as possible to get into a better position in the league table.”
Julian Speroni made his 389th appearance for Palace, breaking John Jackson’s club record for a goalkeeper.