Carroll set for longer spell on the sidelines

LONDON: Andy Carroll is suffering renewed injury anguish with ‘a killer blow’ derailing his recovery from a knee problem and indefinitely wrecking any hope of a West Ham return.

Manager Slaven Bilic has revealed Carroll, 27, has failed to hit targets during rehabilitation work on the knee issue which has already sidelined him for over two months.

And with his time out having already exceeded the initial medical timescale, Bilic is wary of putting a new return date on his star forward after initially expecting he would only miss one week.

“We are all, especially him, very frustrated,” the Hammers boss said. “It’s a killer blow knowing how good an influence he was last year for us, whenever he was starting or coming on from the bench.

“I thought he would miss one game, against Bournemouth, and I thought ‘no’. To still be without him… It’s a massive blow for us.

“All I know is that it’s about weeks — but then it was about weeks at the beginning when it happened. Originally it was foursix weeks and we were fuming about it, it was a shocking prognosis. But now it’s way longer than that. He’s progressing but it’s slower than we expected.”

Carroll has only completed the full

90 minutes in the Premier League six times in 2016 and will face a fight to add to that figure before the year ends. Daily Mail