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I will not quit - Allardyce

Allardyce looks on as his side ship six at City © Getty Images

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A defiant Sam Allardyce insisted he will not quit as West Ham manager after supporters called for his head in the 6-0 thrashing by Manchester City in the League Cup semi-final first leg.

West Ham, who are 19th in the Premier League, have conceded 11 and scored none in their last two games with a 5-0 FA Cup defeat to Nottingham Forest preceding their hammering at the Etihad Stadium.

But while Hammers fans chanted for Allardyce to step down in the final 20 minutes of their record League Cup defeat, the former Bolton, Blackburn and Newcastle manager insisted he wants to carry on.

He said: "There are times when it is good and there are times when it is not so good. You have to accept that when it is not so good, you have to draw on your strengths and experience to guide the players through this difficult time we are facing.

"At the end of the day, we cannot keep walking around with our heads down in doom and gloom. We have to get our heads up and our shoulders back and our chest out and start believing that we are going to do better."

Allardyce shrugged off the criticism from the West Ham fans, adding: "It is life when you are not doing well you get stick as a manager and I am getting stick at the moment. That is the way goes: you take it on the chin and get on with it.

"You can understand it when they travel all this way and the team gets beaten heavily that they are going to give you some criticism but we are not the first team to get beat here by many, many goals and we won't be the last."

Allardyce was given a vote of confidence by owners David Gold and David Sullivan in a statement that was posted on the club's website on Monday.

But while he believes injuries to his three main central defenders - Winston Reid, James Collins and James Tomkins - plus his premier centre forward, club record signing Andy Carroll, account for their problems, he admitted it might not be enough to prevent him from losing his job.

He said: "You can't keep losing football matches. You can't ask that it is allowed to continue. We know the reasons why but even those reasons won't save you in the end."

In the absence of Reid, Collins and Tomkins, debutant centre-back Roger Johnson, who was taken on loan from League One Wolves, was part of a defence that was breached six times.

But while Allardyce praised Johnson, he highlighted the fact he had to play full-back George McCartney alongside him as City strikers Alvaro Negredo, who scored a hat trick, and Edin Dzeko, who got twice, netted five times between them.

He insisted: "Roger Johnson did a good job. When you have got none of your real defenders and have a free transfer and a left-back playing at centre-half against Negredo and Dzeko it shows you the gulf. It is not going to be very easy. Not that George is to blame. The team should have done better. But you can't get near a team when they play like that."

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