Carroll inspires West Ham to victory over Swansea

Andy Carroll inspired West Ham to victory on his return from injury, with a vital 3-points secured in the 1-0 Premier League victory over Swansea at The Boleyn Ground.

West Ham have been in poor form of late and were desperate to get 3-points this weekend to arrest the slide towards the relegation scrap that is clearly emerging.

It looked like being one of those days for West Ham, who found Swansea goalkeeper Gerhard Tremmel in outstanding form as he produced top quality saves to deny Nolan, Vaz Te (with a freshly shave bonce) and Carroll.

However, West Ham showed great fighting spirit and were determined to get maximum points from this game and Andy Carroll duly obliged by powering in a great header from a Mark Noble corner in the 77th minute to give West Ham a well deserved lead.

For all Swansea’s possession with their Barcelona esque tika-taka football, West Ham were rarely tested until after Carroll opened the scoring which saw the Swans spring into life in an attempt to steal a share of the points and it took a magnificent one handed save from Jussi Jaaskelainen to deny Jonathan de Guzman grabbing an equalizer.

West Ham weathered the storm though to secure a well deserved 3-points and are now sitting in 11th place in the Premier League table with 30-points.

Manager Sam Allardyce said after the game:

I was wondering what the lads had to do to score a goal. We had a lot of balls flashing across the goal and over the bar.

Our defending has been our weaker point but we were very good. Swansea hardly created anything except in the last couple of minutes. It’s a massive relief.

Finally, I would just like to point out how impressive Andy Carroll was this weekend, the man was a total beast and dominated from the first whistle, Carroll showed us exactly what we have been missing since his last start back in November.