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Wednesday, September 5, 2012

West Ham United striker Andy Carroll expected to be out for six weeks after suffering hamstring injury


West Ham United are braced for the confirmation that Andy Carroll’s hamstring injury is worse than first feared, ruling the striker out for up to six weeks.




A source said on Tuesday that the Premier League club believe the tear is “bad” but are waiting for the results of Carroll’s scans, which were taken on Monday, to be fully assessed.
It had been hoped that Carroll had only suffered a hamstring strain during his impressive debut for West Ham against Fulham on Saturday which, nevertheless, ruled him out of the England squad for the forthcoming World Cup qualifiers against Moldova and Ukraine.
However the injury has not settled down quickly and West Ham fear the worst for a player who they want to sign on a permanent £17 million deal once his loan period expires at the end of the season. Carroll has suffered a hamstring tear, it’s only the degree of tear that needs to be assessed.
Carroll only arrived at West Ham on Thursday on a season-long loan from Liverpool but made an immediate impact in the 3-0 victory over Fulham, who had also wanted to sign the England international.
Liverpool do have an option to recall Carroll in January but it would represent a huge climb-down for manager Brendan Rodgers, who made it clear the £35 million striker did not figure in his plans, if he brought him back to Anfield.


For Rodgers there was acute embarrassment on Friday when Liverpool failed to sign a replacement for the 23 year-old. He had expected the club to acquire Clint Dempsey from Fulham but Liverpool bid only £3 million for the 29 year-old and although the American had stated he wanted to join the Merseyside club, rejecting a move to Aston Villa, then Tottenham Hotspur were able to sign him for £6 million, leaving Liverpool with just two senior strikers — and one of those is the 21-year-old Italian international Fabio Borini who is yet to score in the Premier League.
West Ham remain confident that Carroll will stay with them for the campaign and that, if successful, he will remain at the club where he is best friends with captain Kevin Nolan and also has a good relationship with manager Sam Allardyce.
However his injury is a severe blow to West Ham and the likelihood is that he will miss league matches against Sunderland, Queens Park Rangers and Arsenal and is also unlikely to be available for England’s next set of internationals fixtures against San Marino and Poland.