Andy Carroll's renewed bond with Nolan pays off

Kevin Nolan and Andy Carroll are such good friends that when the pair were at Newcastle the striker was ordered to stay at his team-mate's home as part of the bail conditions on an assault charge that was later dropped.

Nolan was instrumental in persuading Carroll to move to West Ham on loan from Liverpool last week and Sam Allardyce is confident that their on-pitch relationship will be as strong as off the pitch - as they proved it could be at Newcastle.

Allardyce, the West Ham manager, changed his formation to bring out the best in both players and saw it pay off after only 53 seconds on Saturday when Carroll played a pivotal role in the opening goal for his captain.

Allardyce said: "You look at what happened at Newcastle in the first year. By the time Andy had been transferred to Liverpool, he had scored 11 goals, and by the time Kevin had finished the season, he had scored 13 and they were really comfortable in the division.

"It is easier for me to know that there is going to be a goal scored in our team nearly every week. Instead of a 4-3-3 we went to a 4-2-3-1 and played Kevin in the role to get up and around Andy. I said, 'Andy's here, what would you like to do?' and he said, 'Play in the hole'.

Allardyce had been chasing the signature of Carroll throughout the summer and admits the biggest task was just getting him out of Merseyside. He will be praying that the hamstring injury he picked up midway through the second half, that has forced him to withdraw from the England squad, will clear up over the international break and he will be fit to face Norwich on September 15.

"We never got an agreement with Liverpool until Thursday. Once I'd got that, then I could go to work on saying this was the best place for him. Gladly he agreed with me.

"Andy had to accept he had to move on to make sure he gets first-team football because he's got his England place to protect. We're not as big a club as Liverpool, but I told him to come and play first-team football in the Premier League and be the big fish in a small pond for a while."

With the prospect of club record signing Matt Jarvis and loan signing Yossi Benayoun to come into the team, West Ham supporters have every reason to be optimistic about their prospects this season. Nolan's goal on Saturday was added to by Winston Reid and Matt Taylor to make it a comfortable victory.

The same cannot be said for Fulham and their manager Martin Jol, who is still coming to terms with the departures of his two best players, Moussa Dembele and Clint Dempsey, and feels they have taken a major step back.

Although Jol brought in Dimitar Berbatov from Manchester United, he knows he has a major rebuilding job to do. "Berbatov was really looking forward to playing with Dembele," Jol said.

"The first thing he said was, 'Where's Dembele going?' and I had to say he's going to Spurs. He was disappointed. He was told that before his medical, but luckily we managed to keep him in the building!"