Valencia set to miss Arsenal

Enner Valencia – having cut a toe quite severely on a broken cup at home – is a doubt for the clash against Arsenal.

Manager Sam Allaryce said: It’s been stitched together but we don’t know how serious it is yet. It was a freak accident and it remains to be seen whether he’ll be ready for Arsenal, it seems unlikely but we’ll have to wait and see.”

He added: “Yet again we don’t have a full squad to pick from. I hope we put in the same level of performance as we did against Chelsea.

“I watched Arsenal’s game away at Manchester United and everyone could see the quality they have. We know how difficult it is at the Emirates, where we’ve actually gone in front a few times but not managed to hold on.

“We’ll go there and give it our best shot and see what happens. We’ll try and do what we did against Chelsea and see if that’s good enough to get us a result.”

The Hammers are also set to be without Winston Reid but Allardyce told his morning press conference: I thought when James Collins came on against Chelsea he did a brilliant job. Obviously we are also going to have to change Carl Jenkinson because he’s an Arsenal player.

“Our lack of goal scoring power is a concern at the moment with the injuries we’ve got. We don’t have many alternatives to turn to either. But I’ve said to the lads, if we continue to play the way we have been doing then the results will come for us and they’ll get the rewards they deserve.”

n.”