Carlton Cole still has the chance to earn himself a new West Ham deal over the rest of the season.

ClaretandHugh mistakenly reported yesterday that the Cole contract was up in January, for which we apologise, when in fact his deal runs out in the summer.

And we were told earlier this afternoon that it would be wrong to entirely rule out a new contract offer to the player who has served the club for eight years.

Cole, however, remains down the pecking order of course and were an offer to come in for him the club would understand were he to decide that he wanted the chance of  of regular first team football.

We were told: “It’s all in Carlton’s hands. A new offer may be considered unlikely by some but it depends on how he performs over the second half of the season.

“We never rule anything out on any front until we have the end of season review as was demonstrated very clearly last season with the manager.”