West Ham boss Sam Allardyce is adamant his side are paying the price for huge selection problems they are facing at the moment.

Goals have been hard to come by in the absence of key striker Andy Carroll, but the back line did a great job in the opening exchanges, keeping six clean sheets in first 10 Premier League matches.

However, important defenders then started picking up injuries one after another, with two full-backs playing in the heart of defence against West Brom after James Tomkins had picked up a groin problem.

As a result, Sam Allardyce now has Carroll, Petric, Vaz Te, Downing, Morrison, Reid, Collins and Tomkins all on the sidelines and he is desperate to get some of them back in action as quickly as possible.

“It is like drawing a rabbit out of the hat at the minute for me,” Allardyce was quoted as saying.

“Every day and every week goes by and we have got to get them all fit as quickly as we can, it has been weeks and weeks and weeks for too many of our players.

“That is why we are paying the price at the moment, we used to be great at keeping clean sheets but because of our defensive problems we are finding it hard to do that.

“Finally we have scored three goals at home and we haven’t won the game but that is no real fault for the players who played today.”

Despite slipping into the bottom three following the entertaining 3-3 draw with West Brom, West Ham seem to have too much quality to go down and can be backed at 1.36 (4/11) to stay up.