Andy Carroll announced his return to goal action and is not unnaturally very happy about that – it was a decent way 0f celebrating his 30 birthday yesterday!
His appearance of course left him Cup tied should any team wish to make a move for him in January but after a decent performance that looks unlikely with the Hammers having told CandH that nobody will be going out in the January window.
It’s true that Andy did miss a couple of sitters but made amends with a typical header injury time to ensure we are in the hat for tonight’s fourth round draw on BBC.
He was alsovery active defensively making a couple of important stoppages as Birmingham came forward dangerously and that all helped to defuse the issues that flared up between the boss and Arnie after the decision had been made to take him out of the action as a precautionary measure.
And afterwards the big man told www.whufc.com: ““It does feel good. “I worked hard, had a couple of chances and could have scored five minutes before then, but you’ve got to keep going when you’re a striker and I got another chance and put it away.
“It was a good ball. I’ve been waiting for a ball like that. It was a little floaty cross and Mick put it in and it was perfect, I got up and got the goal.
“I’ve been working for a few months trying to get my fitness up and the gaffer has been giving me 30 minutes or 45 minutes, so it was good to get 70 minutes this time around.
“Both teams played well. We played well. I thought they had a couple of chances and were especially dangerous from corners and I cleared one off the line as well, so it was a good game.
“I think I’m good in both boxes but people just see the other side of it, but we won, so it was a good result.”
He added: “It would be nice to get a start next week, so we’ll start from there. I definitely feel the squad is massive and everyone can play in it.
You saw the young lads too, Xande Silva coming in and playing and Grady Diangana getting Man of the Match showed his level of performance, so it’s good we’ve got youth playing as well.
“I think you could see Samir was not fit at all when he first started training but he’s been working, really, really hard and you knew straight away his technical ability hadn’t gone and it will never go and he’s really, really good on the ball.”
Shame he can’t actually put a sprint in between either box to actually be there on time for crosses.
Now we will get the A.C self promotion lines to get a contract extension.Time to go.
I have used the i’m good in both boxes line a few times hahaha
Carroll is definitely good in both boxes, but when defending set pieces he does not get out of defense fast enough, destroying our offside line. Seen a couple of these situations over the years. His elbows are also a worry