Over the past three seasons, West Ham have played 107 league matches. Of those fixtures, Andy Carroll has been at the club, on loan and permanently, for 105 of them and has been fit and available to play in 53.
That is slightly over 50%. So, for a reported salary of of £80,000 a week, the Geordie-born striker is almost exactly half the player West Ham loaned in 2012, then bought in 2013 for £15 million.
Three consecutive seasons is no small testing sample. The club have been given nothing whatsoever to suggest that Carroll will outgrow his susceptibility to injury, and his playing style, which involves a staggering amount of hefty running, jumping, and earth-shaking landing, almost ensures that maximum stress is placed on his lower body.
Every injury Carroll has suffered during his time in the Premier League, at Newcastle, Liverpool and now West Ham, has been below the waist. Knee, ankle, hamstring, heel, all structural areas have lamed him horribly in recent years. He is still young, only 26. But this evidence, gathered over a compellingly long amount of time, suggests that the future can only get dimmer.
What is most worrying is that Carroll’s contract runs until 2019. That is four more seasons, potentially, of the club carrying an almost-always injured, semi-effective striker who is commanding the largest wage at the club. Here are just a few Premier League players on less money than Andy Carroll:
Manchester United’s Ander Herrera commands £50,000 a week, nothing to sniff at, to be sure. But he’s quickly setting himself apart as a silky and scything central midfielder, scoring and setting up team mates with ease in what has been a stop-start season at United. Charlie Austin who, if not for Harry Kane, would surely be England’s fastest rising star at the striker’s spot, was excited to renegotiate his deal with QPR at the end of last year, hoping to double his wage to £60,000 a week. Austin has scored 11 more league goals than Carroll, and has started 14 more games.
When Carroll plays well, as he has at times this season, it is hard to shake the feeling that he can be a devastating asset for Sam Allardyce. Against certain teams, his aerial prowess is irresistible – against Swansea in December, Garry Monk’s defence simply fell apart, with Carroll soaring through them like a wrecking ball, scoring twice in a 3-1 win. His was a display of gargantuan airborne dominance. And this is the conundrum; is his occasional brilliance enough to justify his devouring of a massive chunk of the wage bill? Until this season, an argument could be made that it is. But now, with Carroll convalescing for well over half of the season, Diafra Sakho performing at a very high level, and the team playing a style unsuited to his strengths, the answer must surely have changed for good.
Another factor affects this decision. Allardyce, as has been postulated in the media about every 3 months since he took over the manager’s position at West Ham, seems very much on the way out. He has never existed at the club without a tinge of discomfort, and the fans have never really accepted him as the best choice available. With swirling talk now of Rafa Benitez, and the continued mentions of David Moyes, the ground is crumbling beneath the West Ham gaffer. It’s no secret that Carroll is a favourite of Allardyce’s. The striker may well follow Allardyce out of East London.
At the end of a season that has been West Ham’s best in recent memory, a shake-up looms large. A change in management, with the move to the Olympic Stadium just around the corner, seems a near certainty, and with it a probable revamping of the playing roster. As harsh as it sounds, there will be no prizes offered for guessing whose name will be on the top of the scrap list.
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