Sam Allardyce has piled the pressure on Alex song claiming he expects him to be today’s man of the match against his former club Arsenal.

Arsene Wenger took the Cameroon star to Highbury as a teenager and has made it clear he needs no reminding of the Irons loan star’s talents.

Nor does Allardyce who said: “I expect him to be man of the match. He’s been superb — a lot of composure on the ball, a real talent in possession which obviously gives us lots of forward options. He can start lots of attacking moves for us with his ability on the ball.

“It looks like we’ll have a few players going to the African Nations Cup, although it doesn’t look like Alex will be one of them.

“If we can carry on without those players and, when they come back, have achieved some good results we’ll recalculate where we think we might finish.”