Carroll: What on earth is going on?
His continuing absence is an issue of huge frustration to everybody with his comeback being delayed beyond most reasonable expectations.
ClaretandHugh has trawled through the various public pronouncements from the manager and player following the striker sustaining the knee issue in the Europa League qualifier.
At the time Slaven Bilic announced to BBC Sport: “Hopefully it will be four weeks. It’s nothing major. But it’s very sad for him and us.”
Fair enough we all thought before Slav said a little later: “Andy Carroll picked up the injury in Romania and I didn’t notice he got injured. Originally we thought it would be four to six weeks.
“Now it is longer than that and it is slower than we expected. He is progressing but it is not the speed we wanted. He is working hard.”
Into October with the six weeks already having been overshot and one National newspaper claimed he wouldn’t be returning until the end of October.
Carroll then tweeted: “My recovery is going great. This was a 6-8 week injury so everything is going to plan.”
That – being generous – would certainly have seen him return certainly by the end of October before chief medic Stijn Vandenbroucke told the official site”Carroll has been out since suffering a knee injury at Astra Giurgiu in August,”
“The rehabilitation is taking longer than our initial prognosis. However, I would reiterate that he is making steady progress and continues his rehab.”
That six to eight weeks has now extended to three months and it really is time someone told us what precisely is the problem.