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ARNAUTOVIC DISBELIEF AS PELLEGRINI PLAYS IT SAFE – AFTER JUST 20 MINUTES

MARKO ARNAUTOVIC was furious after being hauled off early during West Ham’s FA Cup Third-Round win over Birmingham yesterday.

The Hammers striker put Manuel Pellegrini’s side ahead after just two minutes.

But shortly after the Austria international was seen holding his lower back – prompting urgent signals to the touchline by debutant Samir Nasri.

Arnautovic appeared to have shaken the injury off and wanted to continue – but was replaced by Andy Carroll after just 20 minutes.

A strained exchange between manager and the visibly frustrated player followed as he came off the pitch.

With Arnautovic – only just back from a month out – clearly unhappy Pellegrini attempted to clutch his arm, only for the player to brush past him as he headed for the bench.

Carroll went on to score the Hammers’ second goal of the game to seal victory late on.

Pellegrini admitted he was keen to protect Arnautovic due to his recent injury.

He said: “Marko wanted to continue. At the beginning he wanted to change, then he felt well. He felt some pain in his back near the beginning, and I felt it was better to change him because he has recently come back from an injury of one month.

“He had only played one 90 minutes since then.

“He could maybe have continued but it was not good to take the risk.

“It is not very important because we won the game and he scored a goal.”

With a huge Premier League derby clash with Arsenal looming on Saturday, the West Ham chief will have wanted to make sure his frontman was fighting fit.

Birmingham boss Garry Monk said: “We didn’t get the result we wanted but we wanted to compete and we did that.

“We threw everything we could at them but just lacked a cutting edge.

“I can’t criticise the players at all.”