Carew and Baldock Out

West Ham will face Middlesbrough tonight without John Carew and Sam Baldock. Speaking about tonight's clash Sam Allardyce said,

"Unfortunately we picked up the injury to Sam and an injury to John in training on Sunday, sadly. That limits our numbers a little bit. We've only travelled with 17 including young Dan Potts, so you can see how short of numbers we are again."


In other news Allardyce said that West Ham are currently in negotiations with James Tomkins over a new contract. Last week David Gold said that West Ham will reject any approach in January for Tomkins. Allardyce has now revealed that West Ham are keen for the defender to sign a new deal,

"James is not one of those running short of a contract term. It still has about 2½ years to run. We've been negotiating with him and will continue that in January. I am optimistic. We can ill afford to lose any players at this stage of the season."