On August 30th 2012, West Ham United signed Andy Carroll on a season long loan from Liverpool. But the main question has always been: Is he the right man for West Ham?
In Carroll’s first game he certainly took to the West Ham fans in the very impressive 3-0 home win against Fulham. The big man put fear into the Fulham defence as he played a large part in two of the goals. However, Carroll went off with a tight hamstring and would miss the next two league games.
Carroll returned against QPR on the 1st October 2012 as he came off the bench to make sure West Ham held on to their 2-1 lead. He continued to play well in the claret and blue but couldn’t seem to find the back of the net himself. It would take Andy eight games since he featured as a sub against QPR to score his first goal for West Ham, which came against Tottenham in the 3-1 defe at away from home.
Despite the loss, West Ham fans took positives from the game with the main one being the fact that Andy Carroll had scored his first goal. Was this to be the start of many goals to come for the big man?
The answer to that was no as there was worse news for Carroll and the West Ham fans. In the very next game on the 28th November 2012, against Manchester United, Carroll was subbed and later found out that he had a serious knee injury.
Carroll missed nine league games due to his injury and didn’t return until the 30th January when he came on as a sub against Fulham in which West Ham lost 3-1. By this time, Carroll had missed just as many league games throughout the season due to injury as what he had played which left many West Ham fans in doubt as to whether Carroll would ever be fully fit or if he was a player that would be injury prone.
But since then, the big man hasn’t looked back. He scored the winning goal against Swansea and has gone on a very good run since which has seen him score six goals in ten games. He scored in the 3-2 defeat to Tottenham, scored two in the 3-1 win against West Brom, then scored in the 1-1 draw against Southampton and a last minute goal in our most recent game which saw us lose 2-1 to Manchester City.
I believe that Andy Carroll has continually grown on the West Ham fans and as the season has gone on has shown why West Ham would be lucky to have such a great player at the club. Although Carroll is a fantastic player, he isn’t worth £17 million and I personally wouldn’t pay that amount for him. I would pay around £10m-£13m for Carroll.