Slav knew all the AC stories before becoming boss
Addressing the issue of the long term injury victim the Irons boss said: “I heard that because first of all I’m a football fan.
“I didn’t have to become West Ham manager to know Andy Carroll. I heard about that that before sometimes he gets injured because he’s not totally dedicated to be a footballer.
‘These are the stories from my first day, he was long injured when I came here. But the way he’s working, he was working especially in these six or eight week of struggle when you have to work individually, which is boring and which is not ideal type of fun or enjoying football. But he done it really as a great professional and now we are expecting the big benefit out of that.
‘The people are talking those stories, there is something behind them, they are true. It’s very rarely that people are making up stories. There’s got to be something there.
Bilic has forced Carroll to have his own pre-season while the Premier League has been underway so as not to suffer a re-occurrence of the knee injury which kept him out since February.
He added: ‘We tried to explain to him that he needed to work for six weeks and have a pre-season, not to train for 10 days, roll up his sleeve and play the game. He did his time and we should all benefit from.’