West Brom manager Valerien Ismael confirms Andy Carroll signing

West Bromwich Albion manager Valerien Ismael has confirmed that Andy Carroll has passed his medical ahead of a proposed move to the Hawthorns.

The former Newcastle United striker is all but confirmed as a new Albion player with the club now awaiting the green light to officially announce his signature.

Carroll becomes the second forward to join the Baggies this month following American Daryl Dike through the door.

Speaking ahead of Saturday’s trip to Millwall, Ismael revealed the club had reached an agreement with the 33-year-old but claimed he was more of a short term fix to a long term problem.

“He passed his medical,” the manager said.

“We cannot confirm officially but we can confirm if everything goes right he we will sign.

“We’ve got the long term solution with Dike, a long-term number 9 we’ve got. Unfortunately he’s injured for eight weeks, 10 or 11 games.

“We sat with the board with, my staff, we analysed the situation and it’s clear we needed to do something.

“But if we do something we need to have that feeling in the short term.

“He’s someone able to help us, he’s someone to switch our way to play to have that impact we expect.

“We saw in the first-half with Dike against Peterborough, the 50 minutes he played he had five chances to score so you see how important it is to have that target guy in the box.

“I think that with Andy in that situation, he played with Reading for 90 minutes, he scored two goals, he has experience. In that situation he can help us get exactly the power we need in the opponents box.”

As Val alluded to, Carroll scored two goals during his short stint with The Royals.

However, the former Newcastle United striker has only managed four goals in total over the course of the last three years. Certainly not numbers that will get the Baggies faithful clambering down to the club shop for a new shirt with his name on.

Ismael, however, says he has no concerns over the new addition.

“I’m not concerned,” the manager added.

“January it is not easy to find always the player. We found with Dike we’ve got an injury situation and we followed Andy’s performances over the last weeks, last month with Reading.

“You saw the statistics, he played over 90 minutes every game.

“He has the hunger, the desire, when I spoke to him I got that feeling straight away.

“In that situation, in our situation, we have to make sure we are able to compete and to add some strength in our game and in our squad.

“As I say, the impact with Dike in our game was important, he was the final piece we missed and I think it’s important for us to stay that way and with Andy we have the possibility to stay that way.”

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