West Ham United boss Sam Allardyce feels their draw with Manchester City gives them a great platform for a testing month.

The Hammers face Newcastle, Tottenham, Manchester United and Arsenal before the turn of the year but Allardyce feels they can head into what could prove a testing period with renewed vigour.

He said: "It gives us a lot of hope and I think a lot of confidence because it's a bit of icing on top of the cake for us today.

"We were disappointed we didn't get anything at Wigan and we've now got this huge, difficult fixture list that's coming up, Man City being the first.

"Of course, we played Arsenal a few weeks ago. That was, again, a difficult game, We had a lot more chances in that game than we had in this and actually lost the game.

"But this one is icing on top of the cake for us because it's a really tough group of fixtures and we've started by playing the champions of the Premier League and getting a point, so that gives us great confidence going on into this group of fixtures."