Sam Allardyce believes that Enner Valencia is ready to show the World Cup form that persuaded West Ham to spend £12m, despite the Ecuador striker’s fitful start to life at Upton Park.

West Ham have had to be patient with Valencia, whose wait for a work permit forced him to wait before he could join up with his new team and caused disruption to his pre-season preparations. It meant he was short of match practice when he arrived and Allardyce has bedded him in carefully, restricting him to two cameos off the bench in the league and a start against Sheffield United in the Capital One Cup, which West Ham lost on penalties.

It was Valencia’s penalty miss in the shootout that proved decisive, yet Allardyce has faith in a player who was Ecuador’s top scorer with three goals at the World Cup. Valencia featured in Ecuador’s friendlies during the international break against Bolivia and Brazil, scoring against the former, and Allardyce confirmed that he is in contention to start at Hull City on Monday.

“He’s just had two games away, one against Bolivia and one against Brazil, so the only problem he’s got is a bit of fatigue after all that travelling,” West Ham’s manager said. “I have every sympathy with the international players who travel that distance, particularly after I’ve been to New Zealand. I wouldn’t have felt like I could play a game for two weeks after I got back.

“When you’ve done that travelling and experienced it yourself, you realise how difficult it is for international players to come back and produce, in that next game particularly. But the two games will have done him the world of good. He scored against Bolivia and hopefully he’ll start scoring for us very shortly. He’s ready to get the opportunity to go and play.

“It will be great as long as he gets out there and produces what we’ve seen him produce in the World Cup. It’s the goal threat we really need more of this season. Him being one of our major signings, we hope he’s going to be very successful.”

Allardyce has laughed off suggestions that last season’s failure to sign a striker nearly cost him his job but has admitted that you “live or die” by the players who are signed. “Every signing you get, you put yourself under the microscope and you live or die by the players you bring in,” he said. “The players we brought in, it’s not just me, it’s a whole process of the owners, myself and the recruitment department. Bringing them all in together. Me more than anybody else because I’m the manager and I take that responsibility but it’s not just me, it’s everybody who’s worked at the club extremely hard, particularly David Sullivan in this field.”

He is delighted with the options he has got up front this season, with Diafra Sakho and Mauro Zárate joining Valencia and Andy Carroll in competition for places. “From our point of view with Valencia and Sakho, it’s all about goals. We’re planning to make sure we keep our clean sheet record going if we possibly can and that gives us the basis to finish higher in the league if we get some players to get out on that pitch and convert more of the chances that we’ve created. There’s no doubt that we want them to join in as a team and be a part of the team because obviously there’s build-up play that has to go with the goalscoring ability. It’s the same with Mauro. Mauro’s here to contribute to the goal tally. Have we got a combination of front men that we can play in particular games? Sakho, Valencia, Zárate, Carroll is a good variation for me to start selecting from, particularly when Andy’s fit and if they all stay fit.”

On Monday West Ham come up against their former player Mohamed Diamé, who left for Hull at the end of last month but Allardyce still feels he avoided any last-minute panic buying. “Not having to be too desperate on the last day was great for us,” he said.

“I didn’t think we were going to do any business. Alex [Song], that was it, finished, then along came the bid from Hull City. That made up my mind to lose Mo but I made sure we have a quality replacement for that and I knew that Morgan [Amalfitano] was desperate to come back into the Premier League.”