West Ham boss Sam Allardyce knows the importance of taking points off a fellow promoted side when the Hammers meet Southampton on Saturday. "The first thing is looking at the international lads in the hope that they come back and are not injured," he told the club's official website.
"We need to bounce back from a disappointing result but a very gutsy performance and then get back on the victory trail at home.
"Southampton have not had the best of starts and have had some difficult games and have been conceding a number of goals and we've got to try to take advantage of that."
He added: "From our point of view, we'd like to beat them on the basis that we have both been promoted and we both know how much of a struggle it is in year one.
"If you can pick up points from teams of similar standing to you then you take three points and they don't get any points.
"It's almost a six-pointer this early in the season. If we win, they'd only have four points and we'd have 14 and that's a massive gap that they'd have to try and close over the coming games."
