Following on from Dimitri Payet's injury and that of Enner Valencia's, the last thing Hammers manager Slaven Billic needed was for the prognosis of Diafra Sakho's injury to be bad. Unfortunately it seems that Sakho has a severe muscle tear that will rule him out for much of the season if not all! There is no point in West Ham fans cursing their luck, the old curse is still around and many are of the belief that the move to the Olympic stadium cannot come soon enough, but putting aside the 'gipsy' curse aspect, are things really that bad? A couple of seasons ago, following yet another injury to club record signing Andy Carroll, West Ham United only had Carlton Cole available as an out and out forward, and were indeed memorably forced to play without a striker when Carlton was unavailable!
Fast forward to this season and the club have hit a slump following all the high profile injuries, particularly Payet's, but the current squad DOES have strength in depth, it is just a matter of the manager tweaking his system in order to utilise the talent he has at his disposal. It can only be a matter of time before Michail Antonio is given a proper run out, possibly even starting alongside Victor Moses in order to 'bang in' crosses for the target man, and the target man is? Logic would obviously put Andy Carroll at the top of the pile, the other 'seasoned' option is to start Nico Jelavic, but surely it must be Carroll, if only his undoubted skills can be used without interfering with the fast attacking style that brought Hammers so much success earlier in the season. Prior to the disastrous Tottenham game, Billic had been experimenting with different formations in training which included Sakho playing on the wing in order to stretch the opposition to compensate for the enormous gap left by the free running Payet, but even that option is unavailable. Time for plan B, Andy Carrolll has got to step up to the plate, he cannot become a different player over night, but he can adapt and hone is already potentially game changing skills to perfection, he can time his runs and his jumps even better than he has been doing, but to be fair to the Big man, he has had very little game time having seemingly overcome most of his injury demons. The club's record signing and highest earner really should be more than just a bit part player, this is a seminal moment for the player to come good, and for his manager to show his flexibility and managerial nouse. - Ed
