West Ham fans' fury blocked Diouf deal

Sam Allardyce admits that fan power played its part in not offering striker El Hadji Diouf a West Ham deal.

The Hammers boss has been hit by a major injury crisis at a critical stage of the season and invited the Senegal hitman to have a trial with the east London club.

Hadji Diouf has faced nothing but controversy after he was accused of spitting at Celtic fans almost 10 years ago.

He was then found guilty of the same offence against Portsmouth defender Arjan de Zeeuw.

Big Sam still felt he could get the best out of a player who displayed his top form under his guidance at both Bolton and Blackburn.

But a number of Irons supporters lodged heavy objections to the proposed move.

And with Hadji Diouf, 30, being well below the required fitness levels, Allardyce pulled the plug on the deal.

He said: “It is not my job to scroll through everything that has been said, but I considered the response from the fans.

“I wanted to know what it was like and I took that into consideration and made the decision.

“Hadji Diouf’s a good player and he did well for me at Bolton, but I’m aware of the issue with the fans here at West Ham.

“With his lack of conditioning at the moment he needs a lot of catching up and is not ready to play for a considerable time.

“By the time he would be fit enough, all my injuries would be back and available to play. Taking those factors into account, I have not offered El Hadji the short-term deal we first talked about.”

Allardyce was upset with comments made about his team’s 1-0 victory over Brighton on Monday.

He was accused of not getting West Ham playing attractive football,­ but with the Irons second in the Championship, he feels that is complete nonsense.

The Hammers aim to heap more misery on Leicester – who sacked Sven Goran Eriksson this week for not getting the right results – at Upton Park on Saturday.

But Allardyce is not prepared to change his tactics.

He added: “It is bull**** as normal. West Ham’s displays away from home before I got here were lose, lose, lose, lose, lose, lose.

“If they want me to play the West Ham way and lose, then I don’t want to be here. If we are on top of our game we are going to cause Leicester a lot of problems.”