Goal analysis: West Ham’s Andy Carroll (vs West Brom)

This was a strange goal, because in one sense it’s very impressive, but in another it’s an utterly shameful one to concede.

The negative first…

From James Collins original free-kick and the goal being scored, there are only two touches – Collins’ and Andy Carroll’s guided volley. When you consider that the ball, which is just a big lump towards the penalty-box, you have to ask how West Brom didn’t manage to deal with it.

At this point, there’s still no real danger, because all Jonas Olsson really has to do is prevent Andy Carroll from making a clean connection on the ball. The flight of the free-kick means that the forward is unlikely to be able to get his head to it, so Olsson can subtly block him off allowing it to run through to Ben Foster.

But instead, he does nothing – he literally stands still and allows Carroll to go beyond him and to have an uncontested shot. It’s not even as if the West Ham forward has muscled his way into the position: he’s just jogged freely into the six-yard box. Maybe, Ben Foster has given him a call to leave it, but that seems unlikely given the goalkeeper’s reaction to conceding the goal, and the ease with which Olsson – an extremely physical player himself – could have negated the threat.

Whatever actually happened, it was an embarrassing bit of defending from West Brom – after all, which West Ham player would those defenders be most aware of at set-pieces? And which West Ham player would those defenders be warned not to give penalty-box freedom to under any circumstances? Andy Carroll.

And the positive side…

What a lovely finish from Carroll. Just as the long flight of the ball should have made this easy to defend, it made Carroll’s job even harder. The longer the free-kick is in the air, the more he has to concentrate, and the more precise his balance and technique has to be. It’s tremendous.

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