Yossi Benayoun has been backed to go from strength to strength after breaking into the West Ham side.

The Israel international, who was axed by national coach Eli Guttman for the recent World Cup qualifiers against Luxembourg, had been left fearing the worst after failing to make the breakthrough into the first-team following his loan move from Chelsea.

But the 32-year-old, who played a key role in West Ham's impressive win over Southampton, looks to have finally found his feet at Upton Park, much to the delight of manager Sam Allardyce.

"Yossi has an opportunity now that Ricardo Vaz Te has unfortunately dislocated his shoulder," said Allardyce.

"The team had been playing some really good football and getting some really good results so it wasn’t easy to put anybody in from the squad.

"Now that the team has suffered a few injuries, he gets his place. He had a really good second half particularly against Southampton.

"We know he can do even better than that because he has done it many times before.

"We hope we will see an improvement and he can continue to play from thereon in."