West Ham United’s Head of Medical and Sports Science Stijn Vandenbroucke has stated that it is impossible to put a date on when Andy Carroll will return to the first-team fold.
The England international centre forward is a crucial player for Slaven Bilic’s men and has shown that he can score goals for the Hammers when given consistent runs in the team .
However, since joining the London side from Liverpool, Carroll has been held back by debilitating injuries, which has stopped him from building any momentum.
The burly striker has been on the sidelines since picking up a knee injury last month and West Ham have toiled without their targetman in attack.
Despite Carroll being on the recovery trail, Vandenbroucke was reluctant to put a timeframe on when the attacker would be back available for Bilic to select.
“Andy Carroll is progressing well in his recovery from the knee injury he suffered at Astra Giurgiu in August and will start training with Eamon during the final stages of his rehab ahead of joining first-team training,” he told the club’s official website.
“Sometimes it is difficult with certain injuries to put an exact timeframe on how long a player will be unavailable for, and in those cases we try not to raise expectation by mentioning a date by which we expect a player to return.
“In this age of 24-hour news coverage, the internet and social media, there is obviously a high demand for this kind of clarification but, on occasion, it is not possible to satisfy this demand because the return dates are too difficult to predict.”
West Ham have been playing Simone Zaza as the furthest man forward in recent games but the Italy international has struggled and is yet to score for the Premier League side.
