West Ham’s thrilling and thoroughly-deserved victory over Liverpool at the weekend has caused a seismic shift in expectations from fans prior to next weekend’s match against a stuttering Manchester United team.

While recent Premier League history suggests the Reds won’t collapse at Old Trafford in the same way they did against Leicester at the King Power Stadium, Sam Allardyce will surely be looking at United’s porous defence and fancying his team’s chances of getting something from the Hammers’ north-west visit.

Many supporters are claiming Big Sam’s sudden ‘Road to Damascus’ type conversion is a victory for the fan’s actions last season which prompted the board at the end of the campaign to tell the manager - then at risk of losing his job completely - they expected a more attacking policy this year.

There may be some truth in that, but it equally has to be said that the chairman did back Allardyce with a sizeable transfer fund and - more importantly - it looks more and more as if Sam has spent that money very wisely indeed.

In fact, one of the ironic outcomes of Sam’s supposed shape-shifting from dour, defensive dinosaur - an unfair accusation anyway - to shining Ron Greenwood acolyte, is actually that Sam probably has more in common with another West Ham legend - the incomparable Bobby Moore.

For it was the former England and West Ham captain who tried to persuade a reluctant Greenwood to add some steel to his team’s undoubted flair; Moore understanding that sometimes there was a time to attack and another to lock up the shop, whereas Ron was happy just to continue to chase a game and score more goals.

Against Liverpool on Saturday, Allardyce used his substitutions superbly, recognising the visitors had changed their pattern and deciding to close the game down so that the Liverpool’s superior second-half possession didn’t really amount to much more than a good deal of huffing and puffing.

In fact, it was another substitute and seemingly good signing - French winger Morgan Amalfitano - who killed the game late on to add to a very good day at the office for the Hammers boss.

What was also interesting is the diamond-pattern midfield that Allardyce has successfully utilised in the last two games.

This has had the surprising effect of releasing Stewart Downing to not only hugely influence the direction of the game but, better still for the Middlesbrough-born player, has seen him achieve the type of performance that might cause England boss Roy Hodgson to have another look at a player who already has 34 caps for his country.

Again there are supporters who are claiming that the manager only stumbled onto this tactic as a result of injuries to Andy Carroll - and more importantly - team captain Kevin Nolan.

But football history tends to show a large number of these serendipitous moments and, in any case, after decades of bad luck with injuries it’s about time the Hammers got a break (no pun intended) from the gloom of the treatment room.