West Ham to wait and see on Allardyce talks

David Gold says West Ham United will not discuss a new contract with manager Sam Allardyce until Premier League survival is secured.

Allardyce has led West Ham to promotion from the Championship and 11th place in the top flight but his deal is set to expire at the end of the 2012/13 campaign.

Gold claims that he, co-chairman David Sullivan and Allardyce have agreed to focus on achieving their goals for the season before opening talks.

“As David Sullivan and I have always maintained, we will sit down and discuss Sam’s contract situation once our Premier League status has been confirmed and not before,” Gold said in a statement on the club’s official website.

“This is purely because the three of us don’t want anything to distract attention from our aim of finishing as high up the Premier League table as possible.

“Sam did a fantastic job of gaining promotion from the Championship at the first attempt last season and we are all pleased with how quickly he has got the team to adapt to life back in the Premier League.

“We went into Sunday’s game with Aston Villa one place off the top 10 and that is no mean feat for a newly-promoted side.”