West Ham striker Andy Carroll may be looking to get his own back at Manchester United's Sir Alex Ferguson when the sides meet on Wednesday.
Carroll scored for West Ham in their 3-1 loss to Tottenham over the weekend, his first goal for the club and his first Premier League score since April when he was playing with Liverpool.
The struggling Carroll was deemed surplus to requirements when Brendan Rodgers took over at Liverpool during the summer and was subsequently loaned to West Ham.
Never one to avoid putting the boot into Liverpool, Ferguson declared that former Reds manager Kenny Dalglish may not have done enough homework when he originally signed Carroll from Newcastle.
"He'd played not a lot of games for Newcastle and had to deal with a 35 million (pound) transfer to a club like Liverpool," Ferguson told the Sunday Mirror.
"He was young and it was quite a big jump for him for that kind of money. We've gambled on a couple of players in the past, a couple of million, something like that.
"But when you get to that level of 35 million, you need to a bit more homework and see how he is in the second season, maybe.
"Now it's up to the boy to improve himself. He's a great header of the ball and very aggressive. He'll be a handful on Wednesday (now Thursday)."
Although the comments may fire up Carroll somewhat for the game at Old Trafford, they appear more an attempt by Ferguson to deflect some of the criticism being aimed at his own side after they struggled somewhat in a 3-1 win over last-placed QPR.
Although his side came away with the victory, Ferguson did not appear particularly happy with the overall performance after Jamie Mackie gave QPR the lead.
It was the 13th time in 20 matches this season that United have conceded first, although in nine of those games they have won, with victory against QPR being achieved through three goals in an eight-minute burst.
The result sees Manchester United reclaim top position on the Premier League table as Manchester City were held to a 0-0 draw by Chelsea, while West Ham are in eighth position despite the loss to Spurs.
West Ham may still be in some trouble, however, after sections of the crowd allegedly subjected the Tottenham side to anti-Semitic chants during the game, just a few days after 10 Spurs supporters were injured in what was reportedly a race related attack in Rome.
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