Manager Sam Allardyce lauded the hunger of his West Ham players after last night's 2-1 win at West Bromwich Albion, acknowledging the strength in depth available to him this term.

The Hammers made it back-to-back Premier League wins after the disappointment of a 2-1 defeat at Everton a week ago – the Irons’ first defeat in five top-flight fixtures.

Struggling Albion took the lead with just ten minutes on the clock when centre-back Craig Dawson glanced home Graham Dorrans’ free-kick to end a barren run of 323 minutes for Alan Irvine’s side.

However, the Hammers turned the game on its head before half time thanks to two goals in ten minutes. First Kevin Nolan – starting in place of the injured Mark Noble – nodded in after Ben Foster had kept out Andy Carroll’s bicycle kick, before James Tomkins headed his first goal for two years in first-half injury-time to complete the turnaround.

Speaking to the club’s website, Allardyce was quick to highlight the importance of a hungry squad.

He explained: “I’ve got a lot of disappointed lads who are trying to get into the team and they’re finding it difficult, but they’ve got to stay hungry.

“When injuries have come they’ve stepped into the team and been hungry enough to do their job and that happened again here, with Kevin Nolan stepping in, Enner Valencia getting back and Winston Reid back from suspension.

“We had no Mark Noble, Alex Song and Diafra Sakho, but we’ve got players who have come on the field and tried to make us better than we were before.

“They’re all desperate to get on the pitch and keep this run going and show what they can do.

“We’ve used a huge amount of players already this season and we’re still winning games of football, which is great.”

The Dudley-born boss, who was returning to his roots on Tuesday evening, did, however, acknowledge his side had again started slowly despite the result.

He said: “It was a very strange game, because we made a disappointing start, like we did at Everton and never got fired up and into our passing game until we went a goal down again.

“The odds are very poor against a team that goes a goal down away from home to come back and win, because it doesn’t happen very often.

“The way we took control of the game from when they scored to when we got the ultimate winning goal right on the stroke of half time was a fantastic piece of turnaround play in a game.”