West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini has refused to rule out the prospect of Andy Carroll being ruled out for the rest of the season as he confirms the striker is undoing numerous tests on his ankle injury.
The former Liverpool and Newcastle hitman has been missing for much of the campaign due to an injury blow picked up in pre-season, the nine-cap England international returning in December.
Having played 12 games since his comeback, he has been on the sidelines for the last three Premier League games with another ankle problem and the manager has refused to rule out his season being over already.
He was quoted by Football.London as saying: “Andy Carroll is having a lot of medical tests to decide what he must do with his ankle. (Will he be out for the season?) Well we will know more about that when he has finished doing all the different examinations.”
Opinion
Carroll is destined to go down in history as one of those players who never got the chance to hit the heights he could have due to injury – and West Ham seem to have had a number of those down the years. The current striker might not be as well revered as Irons hero Dean Ashton but there are definitely some similarities in their careers. Pellegrini could do with a player who can make an impact either in the starting XI or off the bench and the powerful hitman, who has shown time and again how he can dominate defenders with his physical presence up front, will be a sore miss for the manager. With a contract that runs out this summer, could the Hammers faithful have seen the last of Carroll? Only time will tell, but they should not hold their breath over a return any time soon.
