Carroll double delights Allardyce

West Ham 3 Swansea 1

West Ham boss Sam Allardyce was full of praise for Andy Carroll after the striker hit two goals in their win over 10-man Swansea.

The victory takes the Hammers up to third in the Barclays Premier League as their impressive start to the season continues.

Heading into the game Allardyce revealed he had opted to sign Carroll instead of Wilfried Bony in the summer of 2013, with the latter eventually moving to Swansea instead.

Since then Bony has been in great form and opened the scoring here only for Carroll, whose time at Upton Park has been plagued by injury, to hit his first goals in nine months to turn the game on its head.

Substitute Diafra Sakho added a third in the closing stages after having earlier been fouled by Swans goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski – who was shown a red card as a result.

But the day belonged to Carroll, whose brace doubled his Premier League haul for the Hammers since his move from Liverpool was made permanent.

Swansea manager Garry Monk, who has still only led his side to one win on the road this term, was left ruing what he felt was the worst display he had seen for some time.

“I just don’t think we ever reached the levels we have done this season,” he said.

“That is the first time I can say that, in all the games we have played. We did not make enough correct decisions. The only time we did that we scored the goal.

“We didn’t do that enough and really some of the defending, we gifted it to them on a plate. No complaints with the result, we didn’t deserve anything from the game.”

WEST HAM: Adrian, Jenkinson (O’Brien 79), Tomkins, Reid, Cresswell, Song, Kouyate (Collins 86), Downing, Nolan, Valencia (Sakho 46), Carroll.

SWANSEA: Fabianski, Rangel (Dyer 86), Bartley, Williams, Richards, Britton (Tremmel 71), Ki, Routledge, Sigurdsson, Montero (Gomis 75), Bony.

Referee: Chris Foy.