David Gold is confident Andy Carroll will play his part during the tour of New Zealand.
Rumours have been surrounding the striker’s fitness after he missed both the team’s pre-season friendlies this far this summer.
He was absent for the 2-2 and 0-0 draws at Stevenage Town and Ipswich Town in midweek before the squad flew out to New Zealand.
That was followed by a Twitter suggestion that the No 9 had reported back unfit and that he would be put on an intensive training programme.
However, Gold made it clear that the player is expected to be involved in the upcoming games in NZ.
He told ClaretandHugh exclusively: “Andy has a slight niggle which is not uncommon among players at this time of the year but I am confident he will be involved.”
If I remember rightly he only had a niggle last year and that went on for some time. We should never had bought him and I would sell him now and reinvest in a real goalscorer. That is not going to happen, I know, but this is a pivotal year for him, so hope he delivers..
Pivotal exactly the right word imo
He had a very poor season last year, you’d have thought he would have been working hard on his fitness over the holidays – something not quite right here!
I could be wrong here but reading between the lines for a man of his size he is not a natural athlete.
I’m all for enjoying ones holidays but athletes these days now do as much work on their holidays as when they are in training.
Carroll is always picking up little niggles that a player with better levels of fitness may not suffer from.
I think the prob is he’s built like a quarter back – not a striker
Big news this morning is that Carroll might be going back to Newcastle – wow that would put the cat among the pigeons – BFS’s style of play will be shot out of the water!
Blimey, if u reckon The Sunday People breaks big news we are all in trouble Mick