Carroll heads West Ham to 2-0 win over former club Liverpool

Jürgen Klopp called it a day to be “angry” rather than disappointed as he assessed Liverpool’s 2-0 defeat to West Ham United in their first game of 2016 on Saturday afternoon.

Liverpool’s victory at Sunderland on Wednesday came at a price.

Daniel Sturridge could return to the Liverpool squad for the side’s trip to West Ham United on Saturday. More specifically, and as could be seen by the attacking nature of their lineup, there was a desire to earn a second successive victory.

Enner Valencia was given way too much time on the right wing to pick out a cross and find the head of Antonio, who powered the ball past Simon Mignolet in the Liverpool goal.

Lucas Leiva is likely to deputise for Henderson, while Christian Benteke will lead the line looking for his third goal in consecutive matches.

West Ham set up to defend their lead in the second period, but it didn’t take them long to double their advantage courtesy of another swift counter-attack. Patrolling the edge of his technical area, Klopp cut a concerned and anxious figure.

Klopp turned down the chance to manage West Ham in the close season, stating that he was not ready for a new job at the time, having only just left Borussia Dortmund with the intention of taking a sabbatical.

James Collins. You could have been forgiven for not realising that Christian Benteke was playing as Welsh centre-half Collins completely marked him out of the game, winning every single header the pair went up for.

Shortly after, Lanzini was forced off with what appeared to be a reoccurrence of his recent thigh injury and replaced by Pedro Obiang.

Liverpool gained some impetus after the stoppage and finished the first half in a positive manner, with Emre Can shooting against the bar after good build-up play from Ibe and Roberto Firmino in first-half injury time. Instead the striker wafted a side-footed shot at the ball that caused no harm to anyone in claret and blue. West Ham ran harder while Liverpool were disjointed.

A 3-1 win against Chelsea and a 4-1 win against Manchester City have been blighted by losses to Watford and Newcastle in the last couple of months.

West Ham boss Slaven Bilic added on BT Sport: “It’s a great win – I think we deserved it”. The Hammers were lucky not to be penalised when Antonio felled Alberto Moreno back on his own byline, but his willingness to get forward and support West Ham’s break ultimately ended with the former Forest man powering home a back-post header.

Liverpool still have several players sidelined with long-term problems, with the most significant of them being regular first-teamers Sturridge, Škrtel and Milner.