David Moyes says West Ham have not had any official offer for Andy Carroll, and would reject any potential enquiries.
Premier League champions Chelsea are interested in a deal for the former Liverpool forward, as Antonio Conte looks to bring in support for struggling Alvaro Morata.
However, as Moyes revealed in his exclusive Standard Sport column on Friday, the 29-year-old has suffered an ankle injury which - depending on the result of an imminent scan - could require an operation.
Moyes confirmed on Friday that, despite having undergone an MRI, the striker would be referred to a few more specialists before a final decision is made on surgery.
"We only found out yesterday," Moyes told reporters.
"He went for a scan and it showed up he has a problem there, not quite sure at the moment if it needs an operation or not and we are going to have two or three specialists to look at it to give other opinions to get that then make the correct decision."
While the injury seemingly rules out any January move, Moyes confirmed he would not have been open to a loan deal, but says Carroll deserves to be talked about as much as he is.
"He deserves it because he's been a handful to play against over the years," he said. "He is a bit of a dying breed of big centre forwards who are hard to play against and offer something different."
"But, we said all along we received no official offer from Chelsea for a loan deal, [and] we wouldn't have accepted it anyway. I think I have said as much as I can on it.
"Unfortunately, Andy is injured and more importantly for me, he scored two great goals against West Brom a couple of weeks ago and for us to lose him takes away a big part of our armoury."
The Hammers boss has continually said that he would rather add to his squad than see players leave.
On option he has available is the recall - at a cost - of Robert Snodgrass, currently on loan at Aston Villa. Moyes, though, says there has been no attempt to bring the Scotsman back to east London.
"No [we have not tried to bring him back], and if I did the first person on the phone would be Steve Bruce and Steve Round because I know them both really well," Moyes added.
"No I think that it is something which we’ve had a think about but under the rules he is with them and he’s doing very well for Aston Villa."