Renewing an old rivalry with Rafael Benitez will not
be on Sam Allardyce's mind when West Ham meet
Chelsea, according to the Hammers boss.

There has been little love lost between the pair
since they had a clash of style and words when
they were managers of Blackburn and Liverpool
respectively. Benitez had sarcastically suggested Barcelona were
looking at imitating what he felt was Blackburn's
robust style, while Allardyce said: ``He's got
personal with it for many, many years now. That's
why I don't like him and the feeling is probably
mutual.''

The feud started when Allardyce felt Benitez had
made a 'game over' hand gesture when Liverpool
went 2-0 up against his Blackburn side in 2009. However, as he prepared his team to face the
European champions in the lunchtime kick-off,
Allardyce is was not interested in going over old
ground. ``I don't want to jump into that scenario, I am a bit
bigger than that, I don't want to go tit for tat,'' said
Allardyce.

It was a long time ago, a lot of water has gone
under the bridge since then and I am just looking
forward to the game. ``All I do is look to compete at a level going against
not just Chelsea, but also against a man who has a
real good record, to see if we can upset them.'' Allardyce will have midfielder Mark Noble available
again following suspension, while on-loan striker
Andy Carroll will be assessed after picking up a
minor knee problem. Meanwhile, Benitez admits Chelsea are desperate
for a goal but insists scoring at West Ham would
mean nothing if they did not win. Interim manager Benitez has yet to witness either
event in his two matches in charge, successive bore
draws with Manchester City and Fulham. Chelsea also failed to find the net in Roberto Di
Matteo's final game at the helm, ensuring a run of
three matches without scoring for the first time
since Roman Abramovich bought the club. Benitez is also the first boss of the Abramovich era
not to win either of his opening two games and it
was the latter statistic that more worried the
Spaniard ahead of the trip to Upton Park.

Asked if the first goal of his reign would come as a
relief, he said: ``More to win than score. ``We are close in terms of what we are trying to
achieve in attack. ``The team has improved the shape in defence, but
we need to be a bit quicker in attack. ``Scoring will give us all confidence. The team
needs to score and to win.'' Chelsea's five-hour, 21-minute goal drought can be
blamed partly on an even longer famine for
Fernando Torres, who has found the net only once
in almost two months - and that was a fluke. In the Premier League alone, the £50million man
has now gone 10 hours 49 minutes without
scoring, with the arrival of his former boss at
Liverpool doing little to improve his fortunes.

Benitez admitted this week that Torres had lost
some of the pace that made him one of the best
strikers in the world. That prompted former Olympic 4x100 metres
champion Darren Campbell to offer to coach the 28-
year-old in the art of sprinting, having worked
briefly with the Spaniard last year. But Benitez, who has prescribed Torres weight-
training sessions in order to improve his strength,
said: ``It's interesting to have different ideas, but
we have very good staff here. ``It's different running and running with the ball on
the pitch, 11 v 11. ``[World Cup-winning manager Cesar Luis] Minotti,
a famous Argentinian coach, said a sprinter has to
run very fast, and when he reaches the line, he
finishes. A striker has to run very fast to get the ball
and then his game starts.'' Chelsea will be without the suspended David Luiz.
Luiz picked up his fifth domestic booking of the
season in Wednesday's goalless draw with Fulham
and serves a one-match ban. Chelsea remain without John Terry (knee), Frank
Lampard (calf) and Daniel Sturridge (hamstring),
although all are pushing to make their comebacks

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