Andy Carroll says he came close to swapping West Ham for Chelsea back in 2018, only for the deal to collapse before it could be completed. The striker sets out his account in his new book, and it adds a fresh layer to a transfer window Blues fans remember chiefly for the arrival of Olivier Giroud.
According to Football London’s reporting on the book, the Andy Carroll Chelsea move never reached a signed contract. Carroll’s version suggests it got a long way further than most supporters ever knew.
Carrol wanted Chelsea move after West Ham
Carroll’s account begins at West Ham, not Stamford Bridge. He joined the Hammers from Liverpool in 2012, first on loan, then permanently a year later. By 2017, David Moyes had taken charge, and Carroll felt his standing at the club shift almost overnight.
“Moyes had made it clear that he didn’t fancy me, I wasn’t enjoying training, and Chelsea was still in London, so going there [ Chelsea ] made sense,” Carroll writes, as quoted by Football London.
That is where Giroud enters the story. Chelsea ultimately brought in the Frenchman from Arsenal rather than Carroll, a decision that still stands as one of the more pivotal forward swaps of that era. Supporters who want the wider picture on how Chelsea’s number nine options have evolved since can revisit our striker ranking for context.
Andy Carroll describes a physical setback derailing everything just as the move looked likely.
“Sadly, the move was scuppered by a fractured ankle (they signed Olivier Giroud from Arsenal instead) and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, a specialist told me I might have cancer in my shin bone,” Carroll says.
What follows is just as striking.
“I was obviously really upset, but having told my loved ones the bad news, the specialist denied having said it, even though the West Ham physio heard it as well. So, so strange,” Carroll writes.
Taken together, the injury and the health scare form the backbone of Carroll’s explanation for why a switch to West London never happened.
Life afterwards for Andy Carroll
Carroll is clear that timing mattered as much as anything else.
“I would have left West Ham in the summer of 2018 had Moyes stayed, but his contract wasn’t renewed, and former Man City boss Manuel Pellegrini replaced him,” he says.
Chelsea, meanwhile, moved on with Giroud and have since rebuilt their forward line several times over. For more on where that rebuild stands now, our coverage of the Jackson valuation and our Alonso verdict looks at how the club keeps shaping its attack. Carroll’s path took a very different turn.
Now 37, Carroll works as assistant coach at Dagenham and Redbridge, where he is also a minority shareholder alongside KSI. It is a long way from Stamford Bridge, and from the Premier League altogether. Does it change how Chelsea fans look back on 2018? Probably not. It does, though, finally explain why Chelsea fans never saw Carroll in their colours, and why Giroud got the chance instead.
For the full account in Carroll’s own words, the original report carries more of his recollections from that period.
