Hammers aim high as Carroll set to bring goals

Sam Allardyce feels Andy Carroll can make West Ham a real force in the Premier League this season.

England striker Carroll agreed a season-long loan switch on Thursday to Upton Park after finally accepting his chances at Liverpool would be limited.

The 23-year-old, who cost the Reds £35m (€44m) when he joined from Newcastle in January 2011, is in line for an immediate debut in today’s London derby against Fulham.

“He was pleased to choose us with a number of other Premier League clubs interested,” Hammers boss Allardyce said.

“We’ve got a top-quality player and I’m delighted to have pulled it off. I first tried to sign him a long time ago and it did not look like it was going to happen, so I’m glad it has.

“He’s a huge player in this division who scores goals and contributes to build-up play, and has many different aspects to his game which can help us be a force in this league.

“In your first year in the Premier League it’s all about who’s going to score the goals and who’s going to take your chances, and I think in Andy we’ve added a huge amount of goals to the team.

“Hopefully we can give him the service and he can prove what a good goalscorer he is.”

West Ham’s original bid to sign Carroll included a commitment to take the striker on a permanent contract at the end of the season, but significantly that is now just an option to buy.

“That was probably more of Andy’s doing than ours,” added Allardyce.

Allardyce will hand late fitness tests to defenders George McCartney, James Collins and Winston Reid.

Fulham boss Martin Jol will welcome back the majority of the players who missed the midweek Capital One Cup defeat at Sheffield Wednesday.

Forward Mladen Petric did not feature in the 1-0 loss due to a slight knock, while midfielder Mahamadou Diarra was rested.

Full-back John-Arne Riise returns following a muscular injury but Bryan Ruiz, who pulled up with a hamstring problem during the warm-up at Hillsborough, is a doubt with Kerim Frei (pelvis) and Philippe Senderos (foot) still ruled out.

Mousa Dembele left for Tottenham earlier in the week, with Spurs activating the Belgium international’s release clause, and Jol admitted he wanted Dembele to stay and has been working hard to bring in reinforcements.

He said: “We want to keep our best players and he was certainly one of my best so we wanted to keep him and make the team stronger — we are very busy trying to make the team as strong as before.”