Carroll will need no extra motivation to put one over us

Sunderland have a second consecutive home game when West Ham United provide the opposition this weekend and while there is a glimmer of hope they have got to go for it even though everyone knows we are so far behind we could win on Saturday and probably still go down.

West Ham have had a troubled season. The move from Upton Park to the new stadium has proved to be anything but easy; star player Dimitri Payet engineered a move back to France and lost his hero status with fans; and the team’s results haven’t been as good as I’m sure the owners expected.

Slaven Bilic might be feeling the heat a little bit and I am sure he will be desperate to finish the season with a flourish after they scraped a win over Swansea City on Saturday.

Then, of course, there is Andy Carroll – so often a thorn in our side. If fit, he will need no extra motivation to pile on more misery for the Sunderland fans.

The ex-Newcastle striker might have his critics but if you play a system that suits him and get the service right, then he is a huge problem for any centre-back and I am sure all of our back four would prefer to play a Hammers team with him out of it, than in it.

Sunderland’s position now is beyond desperate, even before the United game every Sunderland fan I talked to thought we would go down – even the blindly optimistic ones.

So a 3-0 defeat in that game hasn’t improved morale one bit.