IT'S a couple of hours after Alan Curbishley has addressed the West Ham United players, collectively, for the very first time. So what did he say? "I said to them: I expect you to train the way you play. I expect certain things on and off the pitch. I'll accept that and take what comes along. Give me a chance of winning because you have prepared properly and you're attitude is right - and I will take anything that comes along.

But if you don't give that and don't get the result then you are in trouble, " Curbishley recalls. "I think they know."

He didn't ask for any feedback. He didn't have to explain why. There has, the new manager clearly believes, been a bit too much talk around the club he grew up loving, played for and has watched from afar with a mix of horror and surprise as it set about tearing itself apart this season for a variety of increasingly bizarre reasons.

Indeed Curbishley, whose first match in charge is at home to Manchester United later today, frowns at the prospect of Nigel Reo-Coker doing an interview. The young captain - a deadline day target for Sir Alex Ferguson last August - has also been the target of much criticism this season for his form and his disintegrating relationship with Alan Pardew.

"He feels he wants to put the record straight, " Curbishley says of the midfielder. "But sometimes you just have to go out on the pitch to put the record straight." The inference is clear. ReoCoker, like the rest of West Ham's young squad, has to prove himself.

That youth, Curbishley estimates he has inherited the second youngest team in the Premiership, is partly to blame for the present predicament. Now West Ham, in the bottom three, have a man in charge who has been here before. "I've had that experience, " he says of his seasons at Charlton Athletic staving off relegation before turning them into a stable Premiership force, "these players haven't".

And neither has the chairman. The Icelander Eggert Magnusson may be 59, may be a vastly experienced "football man", as he calls himself, but he's barely a month into his Premiership career. His hair trigger reaction to West Ham's admittedly appalling form under Pardew suggests a man in a hurry. Curbishley agrees.

"The one thing I find from Eggert, and it was like going on a blind date when I met him as I had not met him before, is that he's very pushy and quick and wants to do things, " Curbishley explains. "Perhaps I may have to curb his enthusiasm a little bit." Or Curbs it.

If that sounds defeatist then it certainly isn't. The message is clear: Curbishley will be Upton Park's plain dealer. It's a right he's earned after 15 successful years in management followed by six months spent re-charging his energies. In fairness to Magnusson it was Curbishley's ready availability - he was their clear number one target - that meant Pardew was permitted less time to improve things, especially when £85m was at stake.

Still the new man didn't rush headlong into accepting the job. "I had to ask certain things, " Curbishley, who signed a three-and-a-half year deal, says. "I wanted assurances that we were in it for the long haul." Such planning has always been his philosophy. "Managers, I suppose because of the precariousness of the profession, think short-term but I have always, at Charlton, looked the other way, the long-term, " Curbishley says. "But I've got a short-term view at the moment."

Indeed the circumstances, the demands and expectations are very different. "When I was at Charlton I perhaps had a cosy relationship, " Curbishley admits. "Now I'm in with the rest of them (Premiership managers). I appreciate that. It's a results business. But I did say to him (Magnusson) 'we are in for the long haul here but the short term is what I have to achieve'."

That short-term means staying in the Premiership. Pure and simple. It's the only target Curbishley has been set this season. "First things first, " he says. "I don't want to get ahead of myself. Last summer this club was talking about Champions League. Because of the great season last year I kept hearing that coming out. The (FA) Cup Final and a minute away from winning it and whatever and 'we're going to do this'. I thought 'hold on'.

I thought 'Ipswich'. They came fifth, got into Europe - and suddenly changed. And little old Charlton came ninth, then they came tenth - and no-one said a word.

"Do you understand what I'm saying? I just think perhaps people were getting carried away. Perhaps I've been classed as cautious and unadventurous and 'bread and butter'. The reason I said that was to dampen expectations. But the only expectations I've got at the moment, and I've told Eggert, is to stay in this league. Then, I feel, with the young players they have got, the club has the potential to push on."

Money is available. And plenty of it.

The Icelanders have committed up to £25m to the January transfer window - but, in truth, not too much is expected to be spent. West Ham's bid to sign Chelsea's Shaun Wright-Phillips for £10m, for example, appears doomed. The player no longer wants to come and is apparently holding out for a bigger club. "As you lose another game, lose another game and there's the possibility that you are in trouble then I think attracting players becomes more difficult, " Curbishley says.

The players he is expected to sign - and his assistant Keith Peacock is working full-time on identifying potential targets - will be experienced, seasoned pros.

West Ham need more of those. There will be few, if any, departures. Reo-Coker, for example, will probably stay until the summer while the club is also saddled with the two Argentines, Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano, until then. Curbishley clearly doesn't believe he has to do the wholesale re-building that Harry Redknapp undertook at Portsmouth last season. "I think he was in a worse position, " he says.

And with a weaker squad.

It's a challenge Curbishley is relishing partly because, he knows, the spotlight will be brighter. And that's different from life at Charlton. "I think it could be very exciting different, " Curbishley says. "The thing that attracted me is that the future is very different. Eggert has said he's prepared to back it in a way that perhaps Charlton couldn't. But the summer is the time to think about the bigger picture."

But, as Curbishley states, first things first. "The one thing that is big for me, " he says, "is that I don't want to be in the Championship. Whoever you talk to, once you've been in the Premiership it's where you want to be - because of the atmosphere, the crowds. The money's great but it's the football. I will do everything I can to make sure that next summer I'm a Premiership manager."