SAM Allardyce is backing his boys to win the war of nerves in the build up to Saturday's big survival showdown with West Ham.

The Wanderers' boss believes his players have the character as well as the class to prevail but he is taking no chances and is determined to shield them from the pressure that will undoubtedly intensify in the build up towhat he has billed as "our biggest game of the season".

"We'll try to be more laid back than usual and try to keep the pressure off the players so that they can play their best football," the manager said, confirming his low-key plans for the week.

"We've no real fitness work or strength work to do. The lads are as fit as you can get them but we will keep them out of the way of too much media hype because once they wake up on Saturday morning they will feel the pressure.

"They know what's at stake but they responded very well in big pressure games."

Allardyce believes Wanderers already hold the psychological edge over Glenn Roeder's Hammers, who are currently the main threat to their hopes of beating the drop for a second successive season.

Despite seeing his team beaten 1-0 at Chelsea on Saturday, he described West Ham's 2-2 home draw with Aston Villa as "a bonus". He also sees marked similarities with the current situation and the position they were in a year ago when they beat Ipswich 4-1 in an almost identical head-to-head.

The Hammers' hit and miss antics at Upton Park left Wanderers with a crucial three-point advantage and Allardyce is confident a victory - even a draw - could prove decisive.

"This has the same flavour, the same ring to it as the Ipswich game," he acknowledged, recalling with great relish that Fredi Bobic-inspired Reebok triumph. "I hope we can get the same performance and the same result, although 1-0 will be enough. But if we can't win it we must make sure we don't lose it because even a three point lead could be crucial with games running out.

"It will be very difficult because they are on a very good run at the moment. They've started to score goals and up until recently they have not been conceding too many. But they conceded two at home on Saturday so we know that if we are on our best form, we can make it difficult for them. People find it very hard to play at the Reebok these days."

Wanderers were not at their best at Chelsea, where a 58th minute Carlton Cole goal kept Claudio Ranieri's side on course for Champions League qualification but Allardyce was not despondent and knows that with an element of luck when John Terry desperately hacked the ball clear of a crowded goalmouth, they might have snatched a dramatic point in the dying seconds - just as Chelsea did at the Reebok in November.

"We put up a very good show but in the end we got nothing," he conceded, "and our job is results not performances. We were hoping at the end we could do the same to them as they did to us in the final seconds. It would have been very nice if we could have done but overall I'd say Chelsea deserved to win the game. At The Bridge with their

recent home form and the 5-0 pasting of Manchester City we always knew it was going to be a very difficult game for us. We limited them to very little until the time when we had to let the lads go and throw caution to the wind to try to get back to 1-1. It was only then that they started getting a few chances and Jussi Jaaskelainen had to make some very good saves for us.

"But at 1-0 you never know. You go right to the end and we nearly snatched it. We had the flutter at the end but didn't get the run of the ball for somebody to tap it in and get us a precious point.

"The fact the we didn't now makes the West Ham game what we always thought it would be - massive."