West Ham chief Sam Allardyce is not reading anything into the scale of Norwich's 7-0 Premier League defeat at Manchester City as he bids to turn up the heat on the Canaries this weekend at Carrow Road.

Allardyce believes the Blues' underlined their attacking credentials with another free-scoring display in the midweek Champions League romp over CSKA Moscow.

'Manchester City are capable of beating anyone in their form at the moment,' he said. 'We don't take anything from the Norwich defeat or the size of the defeat because, at the end of the day, I saw City tear apart a Champions League side as well this week. A loss is a loss. As a manager your mentality towards your players is still the same. It is still only three points that have gone, no more. You have lost 7-0 but you haven't lost five points, you'd have still lost only three points if you'd lost 1-0.

'We will get a Norwich City team that will come out and fight for everything they can. Particularly on their own ground and in front of a home crowd.'

Allardyce admits his side's trip to Norfolk is huge for both clubs with the Hammers' only two points clear of Chris Hughton's men.

'It is a six-pointer already,' he said. 'Norwich played very well in their last home game against Cardiff, I was listening to radio commentary and how many chances they created in that game and we have to make sure we do frustrate them in that area again on Saturday.

'If we can then take the game to them like we did in the 0-0 draw at Swansea this time we have got to make sure we are more clinical and put the ball in the back of the net.

'We've been very resilient and it's just the final product has not delivered as much as we would have hoped.'

West Ham did stun Tottenham 3-0 at White Hart Lane earlier in the season, but Allardyce is more concerned about taking points off the teams around them in the table rather than the occasional shocks against teams fighting it out for honours.

'It has always been more important for me,' he said. 'Those are your games that if you play your best you have got a really good chance of winning. Whereas you can play your best against the big boys, give all you have got and be very, very good but still lose a game of football because of the amount of talent and the money they have spent. I always focus on these, they are the bigger games for us, the games you need to play at your best and give yourself a real chance.'