West Ham United manager Sam Allardyce has put Joe Cole on an individual training routine to ensure that the injury plagued player stays fit for the second half of the Premier League season, according to the Daily Mail.

A stellar debut against Manchester United has reiterated the need for a healthy Cole at Upton Park. The new regime will see him occupied with injury prevention after the weekend before joining up with the squad late in the week on Thursday or Friday for training.

“We’ll take that game by game. A part of everybody’s management is about managing your players for their sake,” said Allardyce.

“It’s not always about joining in training every day of every week for me and it hasn’t been for many years now. We’ll do what’s needed with Joe, as we do with many players.

“Lots of players don’t come together in our squad till Thursday or Friday then play on the Saturday because they need to do other things in the week to make sure they maintain their level of fitness.

“We try to have a prevention policy rather than a cure policy. That’s been tested to the hilt recently with the amount of injuries we’ve had.”

Another injury concern for Allardyce has been Andy Carroll. His return from injury is a little ambiguous, with the manager reluctant to put a date on his comeback.

“It’s a bit difficult to put an actual time on it but I would expect it will be no longer than a couple of weeks now,” Allardyce added.

“He’s doing some straight line running and if he doesn’t feel anything then we’ll progress onto interval running and change of direction, then introduce the ball.

“Hopefully he will come back with the players as soon as possible. It could be a few days. It could be a bit longer than that just depending on his progression day by day now.”

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