Sky Sports pundit Alan McInally tore into West Ham attacker Andy Carroll for the lack of impact he made when featuring against Cardiff City on Tuesday.
Julian Warren asked McInally how the 29-year-old Hammers forward was performing during the 3-1 win over Cardiff as the pundit was covering the game for Sky Sports and the 55-year-old cheekily said ‘Who’ in response.
“Who?” said McInally on Sky Sports’ Soccer Special (Sky Sports Premier League, Tuesday 9:31pm).
Warren then responded; “Andy Carroll, heard of him?”
This prompted McInally to reluctantly drop the facade about not understanding the question and share his opinion on Carroll, in which he revealed he’d rather talk about Grady Diangana.
“Yea..no he hasn’t really had a kick, I tell you who I have been impressed with though, I was just saying to Tony (Cottee) that a boy called Diangana, Grady Diangana, he started in the youth team this season.
“He has come on, had a little turn, shots going right in the corner and unfortunately for Diangana, Etheridge (Neil) makes the save for Cardiff as that really would have been the icing on the cake for West Ham.
“He hasn’t really been in the game a lot the big man so far, I imagine he’d be breathing very heavy already considering he hasn’t had a lot of football, but certainly the West Ham fans are loving this even more now that Diangana is getting a few touches.”
OPINION
Carroll replaced Javier Hernandez in the 64th minute of the clash with Cardiff on Tuesday and it’s easy to see why McInally was left unimpressed by the impact the forward made. The 29-year-old had a couple of half-chances and didn’t really standout for any reason in particular. However after Carroll has been stuck on the sidelines for so long, it was just nice to see him get minutes on the pitch. Manuel Pellegrini probably wasn’t expecting Carroll to make an instant impact upon being played on Tuesday due to his lack of football in recent months and was probably just thrilled he got through the game without picking up any injuries or knocks. The Hammers’ fixture list looks very promising over the festive period, as it looks packed with a lot of winnable games, and Carroll can easily play his part in help his side get points on the board. This is especially the case after Marko Arnautovic worryingly limped off with what looked like a hamstring injury during the match with Neil Warnock’s side.
