No Xmas Carroll For Big Sam - He Could Be Next For Chop!

Last updated : 16 December 2013 By Footy Mad - Editor

AVB got the sack this morning and Big Sam, who was 10/1 to be the next Premier League boss to go, has dropped down to odd-on favourite.

Allardyce saw his side draw a blank against Sunderland at the weekend – the fifth time the Hammers have failed to score in their last eight Premier League games.

And the under-pressure West Ham boss all but admitted afterwards that his current squad is a busted flush without its injured £15m man.

Sam Allardyce: “The return of Andy Carroll will make us better, but there’s no point in talking about him until he’s fit.

“When these players come back we will improve and of course then we will look to add to the squad in January.

“But when you look at the stats, they are quite glaring in terms of how many games we win with Andy in the side and how many we don’t when he’s absent – that’s the reason why we bought him in the summer.”

Without Carroll and his former Tyneside team-mate, the suspended Kevin Nolan, West Ham laboured all afternoon against the Wearsiders.

“I thought we lacked a spark.

“I thought there was a little too much edge in our play – the simple balls going astray a bit more often than they needed to – and it meant we were never able to put Sunderland under the sort of pressure that we’d exerted on Fulham in winning our last home game.

“That meant we ended up with a dogged affair rather than the good creative football we previously played.

“We were looking for one of our creative players to produce a moment of genius, something a bit special to get the ball in the back of the net.

“But we couldn’t find it and so a draw was probably a fair result after that.

“It was disappointing, but in the end I think we got what we deserved.

“Had we got more than that I would have been delighted, but I can’t complain about the point given the performance.

“There’s a bit of nervous tension and anxiety around our place, and this was a game that both teams really could have done with winning."