West ham United manager Sam Allardyce expects a tough examination in Saturday’s Premier League clash with Crystal Palace at Upton Park.

The Hammers are without a win in their last four league outings and after throwing away a 2-0 lead at White Hart Lane last weekend are in dire need of a positive result.

Allardyce is expecting to see a different Crystal Palace side from the one West Ham comfortably beat 3-1 at Selhurst Park earlier in the season.

“They’ve got some exciting attacking players in Jason Puncheon, Wilfried Zaha, and Yannick Bolasie so we will need to deal with them,” said Allardyce.

“I think they will probably play counter attacking football, that’s how they have tended to set up away from home.”

Allardyce has also confirmed that new signing Nene will start from the bench on Saturday having joined as a free agent last week after leaving Qatari side Al-Garafa.

The 33-year-old Brazilian, who previously plied his trade with Paris Saint-Germain, is expected to make an impact in the absence of the injured Carlton Cole and Andy Carroll.

Allardyce said: “Nene can play a big part for us, especially with Carroll and Cole out. He now has to stake a claim like every other player that plays.”

The east Londoners are looking to bounce back from Saturday’s disappointing 2-2 draw with Tottenham Hotspur.

Despite conceding twice late on against Spurs, Allardyce is keen to move on and focus on the positives ahead of his sides second London Derby in the space of six days.

“Last Sunday was a huge disappointment but the players deserve a huge amount of credit we could of got seven points from our last three games,” he stated.

“We’ve slipped out of the elite area of the Premier League and in the last three games we were seconds away from sitting in the top six.”

While West Ham have been in poor form of late, the arrival of Alan Pardew as manager at Palace has resulted in an upturn in the club’s fortunes.

Pardew, who took West Ham to the 2006 FA Cup final as manager, has overseen a return of ten points from his first six league games in charge of Palace.

However, he is suffering a shortage of strikers and will be without Yaya Sanogo, Fraizer Campbell and Marouane Chamakh at the weekend.