If Andy Carroll didn’t know that West Ham manager Slaven Bilic is becoming increasingly frustrated that his star striker hasn’t been available as regularly as he would like of late, he certainly does now.
For the Hammers boss has made it clear that he is exasperated at Carroll’s time on the treatment table; and has expressed his desire that the former Newcastle and Liverpool hitman, recently out with a groin injury, be available for selection when West Ham host Tottenham in the Premier League on Friday night.
For the record, Carroll, 28, has made just 18 top flight appearances this campaign (scoring seven Premier League goals so far) along with two in the FA Cup. Of those matches, he has played the entire 90 minutes on 12 occasions.
And as Bilic tries to build on a mini-run of avoiding defeat in the past four matches (the latest of which was a creditable 0-0 draw at Stoke City on Saturday) with a decent performance at home to Mauricio Pochettino’s high-flying Spurts, Bilic said: “I will be very disappointed if he is not involved. It looked like he would be 50-50 for the Everton game on April 22, but it wasn’t to be, so hopefully he’s going to make it to be involved against Tottenham.
“I know that Andy is not injured because he is not professional. That script is not the case. I know that Andy is very settled down, very up for training and looking after his body and it looked, at one stage of the season, that he would be OK and all that. We will talk about his injury record after the season.”
“He won’t be available for 90 minutes, but you don’t need to play the whole game to be effective; just like Stoke put Peter Crouch on for 20 minutes on Saturday. You want to have him at least on the bench, because it gives a lift to the team as we are lacking goals.”
And apart from being goal-shy, Bilic says he is content with the way in which his charges are going about their business. He added: “I am happy with everything else. We are defending good, we have a good shape and everything, never losing composure, good on the ball, but there we are.”
Meanwhile, West Ham managing director Angus Kinnear is leaving to join Leeds United as their new chief executive. Kinnear, who joined from Arsenal four years ago to oversee the move to the London Stadium, has been recruited by Leeds’ new owner, Italian media mogul Andrea Radrizzani.