Hodgson has no fitness fears over West Ham’s Liverpool loan star

Thursday, October 4, 2012
3:10 PM

England boss Roy Hodgson has no worries about the fitness of striker Andy Carroll.

Sam Allardyce has slapped a ‘handle with care’ notice on the West Ham forward, who has only just returned from a hamstring injury.

Such is the high regard Hodgson has for the 23-year-old forward, he has named him in his squad for the World Cup qualifiers against San Marino and Poland on the back of that single substitutes’ appearance at QPR on Monday.

And he expects the player to be somewhere close to full fitness by the San Marino encounter at Wembley on October 12.

“Andy played 23 minutes including injury-time on Monday and I am expecting him to play more minutes on Saturday against Arsenal, either from the start or coming on,” said Hodgson.

“He has another week after that so I don’t think there is any reason for me to question his fitness.”