No room for West Ham’s record signing?

The promise of Sam Allardyce’s bigger, sexier and more exciting football might actually be a real thing. Sure, we’re not racking in the points yet (although four points in four games isn’t half bad – Manchester United have managed five in four, for reference) but the game against Hull City was a demonstration of a different type of football – one in which we attacked and scored goals – and one of those must surely be an early contender for goal of the season.

Enner Valencia’s absolute screamer of a goal even warranted it’s own half-page infographic in the following day’s Evening Standard—now that’s sexy football. The game was referred to as a “thrilling encounter” by the BBC and even the Guardian mused that “West Ham’s evolution may be worth watching” in a game that was “such fun.”

Credit for this more exciting football must be given to our new attacking signings – Enner Valencia, Diafra Sahko, Mauro Zarate, Morgan Amalfitano, and Alex Song – all of whom are great news for the squad and the club, but where does it leave our old buddy Andy Carroll?

Remember him? Tall, Northern and expensive?

That’s right people – we’ve still got £15million pounds worth of giant Geordie in the treatment room, and now that he’s starting to run and getting ready to push for his spot in the team, I’m wondering what role he will return to play.

We’ve currently got six players tied for top goalscorer (with, well, one goal apiece) and owing to his injury, none of them is named Andy Carroll. Nor is one named Kevin Nolan, either – albeit he is also currently injured.

Andy Carroll is our record signing, and it would be a shock not to see him play when fit, but how does he fit into this side, and who is going to be playing around him? Would he work well with Valencia’s pace and aggression? Would he benefit from Zarate’s passing and ability to move the ball forward? Or is he a remnant of our old, often unsuccessful, loan striker system?

Of course here I am wondering what a team which has scored all of six goals in four league games is going to do with all their strikers—really, in the great world of problems, it’s not one the most pressing issue, is it – but it will be very interesting to see how Andy Carroll adapts to coming back into a changed team.

He will need to earn his spot back, and hopefully a gradual period of introduction will give him ample time to work his way back from injury rather than being dumped in at the deep end on his first game back. My hope is that Carroll can adjust to a different system, and who knows, it may be one that suits him down to a T.

After all, the more strikers we have, the greater competition for playing time – and hopefully, this will lead to a serious influx of goals from players desperate to be out there.

How do you see Carroll’s role in the squad after he returns? Who would you most like to see him partnered with or, alternatively, who would you most like to start for us up front?