Sam Allardyce does not regret ploughing the vast bulk of last summer’s transfer budget into the pursuit of Andy Carroll, a player who has yet to kick a ball in anger this season, as West Ham United prepare to welcome the England striker back to the bench for their critical Premier League game at Cardiff.

West Ham spent a club record £15million to make Carroll’s loan move from Liverpool permanent despite the 25-year-old having torn the lateral plantar fascia on the outside of his right foot during the final game of last season.

According to Allardyce, West Ham were told there was a “4 per cent” chance of a recurrence of the injury, only for the forward to rupture the medial tendon in the same foot in September.

Yet Carroll has trained well over the last two weeks, with the manager – desperate to improve the mood after one league win in 13 matches and successive 5-0 and 6-0 defeats in the domestic cup competitions – prepared to take the “calculated risk” to restore him to the bench at Cardiff.

“If we had our time over again, would we have signed him? Yes, on the information we had,” Allardyce said. “It appeared that the risk of re-injury was about 4 per cdent. Unfortunately, for us and for him, Andy became one of the 4 per cent.

"It's been a tough few weeks but I'm still here and I'm still fighting," Allardyce said. "If I'd had a fully fit squad for the Christmas period and the cup games and the results had gone badly, I'd be really worried. I'm confident we'll get the players back to fitness and add to that."
Guardian Service