Foundations in place for Carroll to cash in at West Ham

Sam Allardyce claimed that the signing of Andy Carroll would all but guarantee West Ham’s Premier League survival.

If his performance against Fulham is anything to go by then this bold statement could have a sound basis. Although the England striker didn’t find the net on debut, he definitely threatened and he can be backed at 5/2 to reach double-digit goals in the league this season.

The Liverpool-loanee will be asked to perform a similar role as to what he did at Newcastle where he enjoyed plenty of success.

Spear-heading an attack where his physical presence will be utilised as opposed to linking up with Luis Suarez, a man whose football brain operates at least five steps ahead of his own, will see him reap many more rewards than what he did on Merseyside.

Carroll revelled in a system not unlike the one employed by the Hammers at Newcastle where he netted 29 times in a season and a half.

He was the main benefactor of the service offered by Joey Barton during that spell. Now he has former Wolves man, Matt Jarvis, to perform that task and, statistically, this should produce even better results for the England striker.

Jarvis was the man who attempted and completed the most crosses in the Premier League last season, yet Wolves were still relegated. A player of Carroll’s aerial prowess may well have made the difference in their ill-fated survival bid.

Carroll registered the most headed goals in what was an underwhelming Premier League season last time around so this partnership between himself and Jarvis is likely to show Wolves what they were missing last year.

Linking up with Kevin Nolan again should also see a rise in the number of goals scored by Carroll this term.

The midfielder was on the pitch for all but one of Carroll’s Newcastle’s goals following his January 2009 arrival.

There were no signs of the pair’s ability to cause havoc in opposition defences when they took to the field against Fulham, with Nolan netting after 53 seconds following some Carroll-induced panic.

This snippet is something Hammers fans will be looking forward to recurring throughout the season and surely points to Carroll’s name being regularly printed on scoresheets at the weekends.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.