Treat Carroll with care - Allardyce

West Ham manager Sam Allardyce will stress England manager Roy Hodgson must be careful with Andy Carroll ahead of next week's World Cup qualifiers.

The striker, on loan at Upton Park from Liverpool, has only just returned to action after a month out with a hamstring problem, but was called up to the national squad for the ties against San Marino at Wembley on Friday night and then away to Poland on Tuesday week. Carroll played the full 90 minutes of Saturday's 3-1 home defeat by Arsenal.

Allardyce said: "Andy is really lacking in match practice. What I will speak to Roy about is his fatigue level. Andy will be stiffer than everybody else after this because he hasn't played a full 90 minutes in recent weeks, so he will take a bit more time to recover. But he should be fine for Friday and hopefully he will get a game at some stage to improve his match fitness."

Carroll was West Ham's main outlet against Arsenal, in a match which on another afternoon the hosts could well have taken something from having gone ahead through Mohamed Diame.

Indeed, the 23-year-old planted a header just wide in the second half which would have put West Ham back in front.

Allardyce believes his side must continue to play to Carroll's strengths.

"Andy can only get better as time goes on," he said. "As long as we can keep giving him the service, I think he is going to be a tremendous asset."