West Ham United boss Sam Allardyce believes his side's change in formation at half-time proved crucial in their 3-0 home win over Hull City.

The Hammers started out playing 4-3-3 but were getting frustrated by the visitors in the opening half so Allardyce switched to a diamond formation. The change paid off as three second-half goals fired them to the victory yesterday.

Allardyce told the club website: "I had to change the whole system, apart from the back four and the goalie, but I couldn't do it during the game because I thought it would be too much and people wouldn't understand what I was wanting.

"I wanted to get through to half-time and make sure we didn't concede a goal and sort it out from there.

"In the end, I think that gave us a better opportunity to start attacking Hull better. Our passing was going astray and our choices of passes were wrong before half-time.

"We were playing backwards and sideways too much instead of playing forwards, so we put the emphasis on playing a diamond and getting Enner Valencia and Stewart Downing closer to Andy Carroll, Kevin Nolan running from deeper positions and Mark Noble and Alex Song playing the full-backs and forwards in better."