My home record against tomorrow’s opponents Arsenal isn’t bad — played 13, won five, drawn three.

If you want to play effectively against a team such as ­Arsenal, you have to be tactically ready — the players need to know what they must do to try and stop a fabulous team from passing at will.

You ignore that at your peril because you might last for 50 minutes or even longer. Inevitably, though, you run out of steam and they’ll punish you.

If it happens late in the game, Arsenal will beat you by one or two goals. If it happens earlier, it could be five or six.

Everyone will have to be on top of their game tomorrow. As high as the expectation is based on our start, we might play our best and still lose.

If we catch Arsenal on the wrong day, it might not matter how well we play.

So, how do you play against them? Firstly, you have to stop their players from doing what they want — our players, particularly the front men, have to do the stuff they’re never as keen on, such as defending by closing down.

After that, you have to seek out ­Arsenal’s weaknesses. They have fewer than most but they have some because we all do.

Ultimately, as I discovered, even if all that works and you manage to get a result against Arsenal, you get criticised for the way you’ve achieved it — but that doesn’t matter. The only thing which matters is to beat the opposition by tactics which give your team a chance.

I’ve had one or two run-ins with Arsene over the years but it’s nothing personal. We all get agitated and upset on the touchline, especially if things are not going as well as they could.

I remember one occasion when my team were deemed to be dirty or over physical because we had stopped them doing what they wanted. My answer then, as now, was that my team’s disciplinary record was no worse than ­Arsenal’s — probably better, in fact.

Despite all that, there is invariably a shake of the hand after the game and that’s how it should be. Respect is the bottom line. Of course, Arsene and I can fall out during a game but I will always respect him for what he has done at Arsenal, for so many years.

To be honest, I didn’t expect it to pay off as many times as it did against ­Arsenal at home — but it did. We had different problems at their place but that’s a different story.

Changing your tactics according to the opposition is a big part of what I do. If you look at our 2-1 win at Queens Park Rangers on ­Monday, our tactics were to test their nerve from the start.

I wanted to take the game to them and see if they had any nerves because, if they had, then they would make mistakes, which is how it panned out.

In some ways I’m the complete ­opposite to young managers such as Roberto Martinez, Brendan Rodgers and Paul Lambert. They all seem to want their teams to play one certain way. The biggest problem is that if you do that and it doesn’t work you have to face a host of critics, who are pointing the finger and asking: “Where’s your Plan B?”

I prefer to learn from my mentor, Sir Alex Ferguson, and have Plans B, C and D ready in the locker, as long as your players can adapt to it.

I would stress this is only my opinion. If what they do works for these young managers then fantastic because there is no right or wrong way. The only way is your way and if that wins matches, then you stay in a job.

If you can win and entertain, which is what we’re doing at the moment, then even better. Our entertainment level is far greater than I expected at the start of the season. At QPR, we were getting many more players into their penalty area than I anticipated.

It does seem as, though, following our win at QPR, we have gone from long-ball specialists to being compared with Real Madrid after statistics revealed they have made, on average, more long passes than us this season.

It seems it’s all about perception but, in the end, almost every team goes long, particularly when they are losing and time is running out.

It’s not always a long ball though — it’s often a long pass, as perfectly illustrated by Paul Scholes, the best long passer in the business.

We were criticised for using the long ball last season in the Championship. Just take a look at the stats — we were miles ahead of the rest in terms of ­passing ratios.

Noble will get England call when time is right

IT’S good to see Andy Carroll in the England squad and there was talk of another of our players being included.

In the end, Mark Noble, who has been outstanding recently, missed out but I wasn’t surprised. After all, who would he have replaced and was it the right time to play him, with England facing two World Cup qualifiers?

We’re only just back in the Premier League. Mark has to keep on playing well and then, if he does that, the spotlight will inevitably be on him. Mark has possibly taken on more responsibility since Scott Parker left us for Tottenham. They were a good midfield pairing and Mark probably learned a lot from Scott. This season Mark has been particularly good at taking the ball off the opposition and then going and playing.

His forward passing success rate has also increased, perhaps because it can be less ferocious in the Premier League.

Remember, we’re only six games into the season. We’ll find out a lot more about Mark tomorrow, when we face Arsenal.

Rumours way off the mark

THERE has been some speculation about my future, specifically the fact I won’t be offered a new contract at the end of the season if West Ham are relegated.

I have never had a discussion with the chairmen regarding my contract and I have an excellent relationship with both men.

As far as I am concerned, what will be, will be. If West Ham go down — and we’re all working hard to make sure than doesn’t happen — I wouldn’t expect to stay. In fact, I probably wouldn’t want to stay because I would feel I’ve let the club down.

The bottom line is I just want the players to carry on doing what they’re doing because they’re making me look good and making my job easier.

Clattenburg is in my bad books

I ADMIT I was unhappy that Mark Clattenburg chose to book so many of our players against Queens Park Rangers. I’ve never seen him referee like that before.

We had 22 free-kicks awarded against us and collected eight bookings. In the context of the game, where we were the dominant side, that was disappointing.

Sam Allardyce’s fee for his column will be donated to the Bobby Moore Fund for Cancer Research UK. For more information on the Fund, go to bobbymoorefund.cancerresearchuk.org