‘England national team still open to Carroll’

England manager ,Roy Hodgson is open to Andy Carroll returning to the national setup if he can return to fitness and form.

Carroll, 26, has battled injuries in his past two seasons with West Ham, leading to just seven Premier League goals in total. But Hodgson would still welcome the nine-time England international into his team, if he can prove he is ready.

“I don’t close doors. We have had Rickie Lambert do a very good job for us as that type of player, and there is [Charlie] Austin, too,” he said.

“I’m not going to hang myself by saying, ‘Unless you are a certain type of forward there is no chance for you’ because in a squad of players sometimes there is. “

And if Andy can catch up then everyone knows what a handful he is as a player. Then who knows? He could quite easily become a player we look at.

“But that’s got to be up to him and he’s been very unfortunate with injuries and I can only hope that he can recover from his injury problems in the same way that Phil Jones has.” Carroll has scored two goals in his nine internationals.