Andy Carroll has an outside chance of making Slaven Bilic’s squad for the match at West Brom on Saturday afternoon.
The injury-ravaged striker is running again and may step up things before the weekend but our Hammers source said this morning: “There’s a chance of him making it but it is an outside one.
“He has recovered well from the knee injury and is starting to look sharp again but it’s probably more realistic to think of him returning for the match against Southampton a week on Sunday.”
Bilic has to decide whether he will bring back Havard Nordtveit to sit in front of a defence which was in shocking shape last week and if so who makes way for him.
One candidate would be Manu Lanzini and that seems impossible given his great midfield ball caryring display at times against Watford.
A more realistic selction proess may be to bring in Angelo Ogbonna for the out of sorts James Collins with Álvaro Arbeloa coming in at right back for Sam Byram.
Why would you leave Collins or Reid in the team,
Byram is not the problem,he needs a right sided CH and cover in front at time which should come from Antonio tracking back ,
AC is not the answer either if Sak was fit I would bring him in but Zaza and Calleri deserve a chance alongside Payet and Lanzini,
I would go with Calleri before Zaza who at times tried to hard and beat players infront of goal instead of linking up with the others,
Trying to hard like Biggins,
Norveld could play alongside Byram and Obiang instead of Noble or Oxford,
But until we learn that Ginge ( who needs to go back to the total commitment no hands behind his back no messing) is out of date,
Reid who only has a good game in every 3-4 are not good enough and half the problem Ogbonna and Byram struggle,
You will never convince me that I am not right they are now going down the Nolan route,and Slav must not stick with them as Hippo did,
Feggolui could come back in to the side but who for ?
Our front 3 of Psyet,Lanzini and Antonio are a must for all reasons class entertainment the chance to win,
AC on the bench for me all season,
Oxford also for cover along the back and defensive midfield,
Noble also until he returns to last seasons form ( if he can )
Just wish Burke was still here
Why does Byram always get the blame? Reid got himself out of position for their 3rd goal. Ginge came across to cover him. Byram came across to mark Ginges guy. This left Byrams man who Antonio should have got back to mark.Just after he hit the shot Antonio came sliding past. Don’t matter that he scored 2 goals, that goal was purely down to him and Reid. We should have taken the gooners 12 mill. Reid has been suspect for quite a while now. Doesn’t look happy, always argueing, playing with a scowl, making bad decisions and getting stranded
Reid has been a disappointment for a while now.I like Byram,i think he will be a decent player.I just dont know if maybe Arbeloas experience in defence might be useful right now.
Can’t believe I’m posting 2 in a week but totally agree with Reid comments, he has been poor for a while but seems to stay under the radar……..but is the cause of a lot of our defensive issues, might help if he could stay on his feet!!!
For me one of the problems has been that teams has worked out that Ginge is very slow and that Byram is still settling in. I feel that Reid is better suited to playing on the right side of the central defence with Ogbonna playing on the left. This would be a much better balance and would help Reid as well. Not a fan of Nordveid so far but one of the midfielders should sit just in front of the back four. Two of our games have been away to two of the best teams in the league and I feel we are hitting the panic button way too soon. The Watford game was the first time we had some of the players back, we had the lead then messed up. It is not the first time this has happened and will not be the last, it happens to EVERY team. It is how we move on with the next few games that is more important. Keep the Faith COYI.
Surely Ogbonna needs a recall doesn’t he.He must deserve a starting berth on Saturday.I will be surprised if he isnt in against WBA.
The statistics and watching them play together all show that our best partnership is Ogbonna and Collins, we concede less goals and win more games, I don’t think we lost a single game when they were alongside each other or maybe only 1. As for the impressive ball carrying skills referred to by Hugh, yes I agree he is good at holding onto the ball but he is not so good when it comes to releasing it, he creates almost nothing, he needs to improve that part or be left out for a second striker my vote would be Fletcher who wins balls in the air and also has great feet an eye for linking up play and is a decent finisher.
Oh joy AC could be back! Cue his fan club telling us he’s the man to score 20 goals is unplayable and unique then a month down the line out injured again with a sprained groin / leg / ponytail because Slav played him the wrong way 🙂
There really is absolutely nothing that excites me when I read that Carroll is on the comeback trail.The whole situation is farcical & in truth has been for a while now.