#INSERT type:image caption:Sheringham played past his 40th birthday as a West Ham player. END#
West Ham United have appointed former England striker Teddy Sheringham as the club's new attacking coach.
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Sheringham, 48, has returned to the club where he finished his top-flight playing career to help manager Sam Allardyce achieve the target set by the Hammers' owners of a top-10 finish while playing more attractive football next season.
Allardyce led West Ham to Premier League survival with a comfortable 13th-place finish, but he attracted plenty of criticism from the London club's fans over his team's style of play.
West Ham's strikers contributed just 10 of the club's 40 Premier League goals, and Sheringham will be tasked with getting a better return out of club-record signing Andy Carroll and new signing Mauro Zarate next term.
"Teddy was interested in coming into coaching at this stage so we're obviously glad to have him on board to give us a new outlook on how we are working with our attacking players," Allardyce told the club's official website. "We hope he can give some individual expertise and one-on-one coaching with our attacking lads to hopefully help us to score a few more goals.
"Everybody knows how long he played, into his forties, and he spent the latter part of his career at West Ham so he knows all about the club and we're all looking forward to him joining us and being part of our very highly qualified staff.
"Teddy is somebody who I knew as a very young apprentice at Millwall when I was playing there, so obviously from those days it was interesting to see how he developed into an outstanding individual in terms of what he achieved as a footballer."
Former Tottenham, Nottingham Forest and Millwall forward Sheringham scored more than 350 goals for club and country in a 24-year career which included playing a key role in Manchester United's Treble-winning 1998-99 season. He ended his playing days at Colchester United, but his top-flight swansong came at Upton Park in 2007.
"I rang Teddy up to see if he was interested and he jumped at the chance," Allardyce added. "Obviously, he will come in and work specifically with the attacking players, so it's a part-time role to start with and we'll how it goes and develops after that.
"He brings many things -- his experience and knowledge as a player, his technical ability and then the sort of things he might have done in the box to make that little bit more space.
"It's breaking it down into a very specific basis so the players can take it on board, learn from it and hopefully adapt it on the field to use those techniques to make space and put the ball in the back of the net."