Alan Curbishley has blasted claims that Carlos Tevez was sole reason for West Ham United beating the drop two years ago.

Curbishley, who led the Hammers to safety in 2007 after guiding his side to seven victories from their final nine league games, reckons claims that Tevez, now of Manchester United, saved the club on his own are ludicrous.

"It's fundamentally flawed, I think, the argument that Carlos Tevez kept West Ham up," he said.

"When you think about what goes on in a whole season for the judgment to say that Tevez kept us up, or was the main reason we stayed up, is wrong. Cast your mind back, Tevez didn't score for 20 games. In the run in in the last nine games we used 13 players which we never had the opportunity to do before because of injuries.

"People forget we scored a winning goal at Blackburn that didn't cross the line - so are they going to sue the linesman and the referee? We kept a lot of clean sheets. I don't think any West Ham fans will ever forget the game at Arsenal when Rob Green made about a dozen saves. Bobby Zamora scored two winning goals at home to Everton and away to Arsenal.

"Bobby Zamora had been out injured and came in for the run-in and was nice and fresh. James Collins came in and was nice and fresh. We brought Mark Noble in and suddenly we had a different team. We managed to keep it together in terms of consistent team selection.

"It was a fantastic run-in and I always felt the side were good enough to stay up. It was a great escape and it wasn't down to just one person."