West Ham’s part-time striker Andy Carroll wrong to blast fans for being… part-time – as it’s time clubs took responsibility for being entertaining

ANDY CARROLL, the part-time West Ham  footballer, has been criticising his club’s own fans for being part-timers.

This occasional striker, seemingly made out of glass, reckons Hammers fans ought to stay until the end of matches —  after seeing the London Stadium empty well before the end of a 4-1 humping by Liverpool.

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Apparently, they should ‘support us no matter what’.

No matter how rammed Stratford station gets after their club was moved to an athletics stadium, where you need binoculars to watch your team getting royally and routinely gubbed on their own turf.

But why the hell should they stay?

Spare us all the ‘suffer  little children’ sermons and the idea that watching football is an endurance test.

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Supporting your club is not about holding back salt tears and defiantly kissing the badge in the bleakness.

Sure, leaving early to avoid the traffic when the match is still in the balance does seem seriously weird.

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'IT'S A GAMBLE' West Ham co-chairman David Sullivan admits the appointment of David Moyes as Hammers boss is a ‘gamble’

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Yet many of us frequently leave early when our team is being eviscerated.

I did it only last week and felt infinitely better at the thought of the 11 blokes who’d just ruined my evening having to applaud a bank of empty seats.

Two years ago, me and my mate Deano left after 37 minutes when our team were 3-0 down.

This having  already seen our keeper sent off and the hopeless second-choice goalie literally jump over the ball to concede the third.

It was freezing cold, it was Deano’s birthday and we decided that, since I’d weaned him off bottled lager and on to decent grown-up ale, we’d both rather go to the pub.

I imagine there are plenty of West Ham fans who’ve felt  similar priorities lately and West Brom supporters too.

Any Hammers who wanted Slaven Bilic out probably should have been careful what they wished for now their owners have appointed David Moyes,  whose team emptied Sunderland’s ground far quicker than Bilic’s ever  managed at the London Stadium.

But that doesn’t mean Baggies supporters must button their lips just because Tony Pulis has often overachieved — should you perceive football entirely as a results business.

It’s actually been 12½ years since Pulis was last sacked, a decent run for a manager who rarely tap-dances into team  meetings whistling ‘there’s no business like show business’.

Yet West Brom’s Chinese owners are now considering pulling the trigger on the dark lord of the tactics board.

This has come after Baggies fans bombarded their manager with chants of ‘Get out of our club’ and ‘Tony Pulis, your  football is s***’.

These supporters keep being told by the Brotherhood of British Punditry that they are ungrateful and have  unrealistic expectations.

Which is OK for the pundits to say when they’re being paid to watch football and only have to witness West Brom occasionally.

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It’s quite different when, after a long week at work, you are  spending a vast  percentage of your hard-earned money on actually supporting a Pulis team.

Four centre-halves, three  holding midfielders, 12 completed passes to Manchester City’s 2,587.

I don’t know, this column doesn’t really do stats, but you’ve seen Pulis’ teams, you get the gist.

So why on Earth should West Brom fans have to lump it?

Their club has won leagues and cups, been thrilled by Cyrille Regis and Laurie Cunningham but they’ve also seen them in the third division and being stuffed at home by Woking in the FA Cup.

They’re certainly not glory hunters but they probably go to The Hawthorns in the vague hope it might be unpredictable and/or entertaining.

It’s not about suffering.

You do enough of that all week at work. This is supposed to be the fun part.

Pulis’ most recent sacking, in the first of his two spells at Stoke, came after the club  spent little money but finished  respectably mid-table in the Championship.

But it came soon after Pulis' ‘binary phase’ — when, between October 2004 and January 2005, Stoke’s results were 1-0, 0-1, 0-1, 1-0, 0-0, 0-1, 1-0, 1-0, 1-0, 0-0, 0-1, 0-0, 0-1, 0-1, 0-1.

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Fifteen games,  five goals scored and seven conceded — and never more than a total of one goal in any 90 minutes.

If you know any diehard Stoke fans, you’ll have to ask to see the medals they were given for sitting through all 22½ hours of that.

Or perhaps supporters don’t actually get the George Cross for stoicism.

And perhaps we should stop telling them how to feel.

That's a bit rich

SPARE a little change for the poor old British managers, guv?
Or perhaps, their LMA union could record a charity single?
Because there’s a world outside your window and, quite frankly, it’s a world of dread and fear.

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Sam Allardyce, who must be down to his last few million in compensation cash, was banging the drum recently for this victimised breed.
Yet Big Sam could become Everton boss, meaning three of the four Premier League jobs to fall vacant this season will have gone to British bosses, with an average age of 63.
David Moyes is at West Ham after taking Sunderland down and Roy Hodgson is at Crystal Palace after his England humiliation.
Yet the loudest complaints from the English football establishment came when Leicester appointed Frenchman Claude Puel, who had guided Southampton to eighth in the Premier League.
Still, tonight thank God it’s them instead of you, eh?

Pochet book

IS it just me or is it a bit weird that Mauricio Pochettino, the manager of a club which guards its privacy so jealously that it fines players two weeks’ wages for speaking their minds, throws his doors open to become the subject of a vanity book?

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Transparency in football is always welcome. And, yes, Pochettino is an outstanding talent.
But couldn’t he have waited until he has managed to win the same number of trophies at Tottenham as George Graham did?

Lew's winning tax Formula

MANY congratulations to Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton for dodging the nasty old taxman and securing a £3.3million VAT refund on the purchase of his private jet.
After all, they would have only wasted the cash on fripperies. Like the annual pay of 132 NHS nurses.

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