West Ham manager David Moyes has defended striker Andy Carroll, insisting that he is being subjected to unfair criticism.
The Hammers have so far been poor in terms of their performances and Carroll has also been misfiring and has yet to find the back of the net this season from several games in all competitions.
The 28-year-old was also criticized during his team’s 2-0 defeat against Watford last season after catching Marvin Zeegelaar with his forearm which left the Hornets defender with a broken nose.
Moyes however has insisted that Carroll is doing nothing wrong leading with his arm and added that he is more often the victims of fouls than the aggressor.
“I think it’s becoming ridiculous,” he said. “A couple of times people climbed over Andy and fouled him. And all it was was, ‘No that’s OK, if it’s Andy it’s fine for that to go on’. Just before he was booked, he was scythed by two people. If it been anyone else they would have gone down and taken a free-kick. Andy didn’t.
“We are a country who want to rule out simulation. But he stays up and is hit by two people and gets zero protection. Every time Andy plays is everyone going to say, ‘That’s a foul’? If they do then we’ve got to say now that if you’re six foot four you’d better go to basketball and stop being a centre-forward.
“I’m telling you, you can only jump with your arms for leverage. It’s my specialist subject. I was a centre-half. I needed to use my arms for protection. If we are now saying you can’t use your arms for leverage then that isn’t in the rules of football.”
