Sam Allardyce wary of rushing in new players at West Ham

Sam Allardyce has called on West Ham fans to remain patient and give his new-look squad time to gel together.

The Hammers boss added nine new faces during the summer transfer window, with Morgan Amalfitano the final addition late on deadline day.

Having suffered a narrow defeat by Tottenham in their Premier League opener, West Ham bounced back with a 3-1 win at Crystal Palace only to suffer further home defeats by Sheffield United in the Capital One Cup and then Southampton before the international break.

As well as bringing in a host of new faces, Allardyce also offloaded a number of players and he admits the upheaval could take its toll in the early stages of the season.

"It's difficult," he said. "Fans expect to see the best from the new players from day one. But it's hard to integrate players, especially foreign players. To get them settled into a new culture and new routines you have to do an awful lot of work.

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"You have to take a player's family into consideration and sort out their personal lives. You need to make sure a player and his family is happy and settled when they leave the training ground. The integration of a new player is something you want to do as quickly as possible.

"I think the whole euphoria surrounding the transfer window acts as a distraction. But we can't use that as too much of an excuse. I expect a lot better from the team and hopefully we'll see that on Monday."

Amalfitano and Barcelona loanee Alex Song are in line to make their debuts at Hull City on Monday evening, but Allardyce will not rush any new faces into action unless they are fully fit.

"You don't want to hurry a player in too quickly," added Allardyce. "The season is 38 games so we have to think about the long term and do what's right for both the player and the team.

"You have to take the fitness of the new player into consideration as well. It depends when in the summer you sign a player and how much of a pre-season the player has had.

"For instance, Alex has had a pre-season at Barcelona but no games. So he's hugely short of match practice. Morgan has had some games but had 10 or 12 days when he didn't train because he was sorting out his move back to England."

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