Slaven Bilic: Andy Carroll should win Goal of the Season after rightly beating Arsenal's Olivier Giroud to January prize

Wonder goal: Andy Carroll's acrobatic effort sealed the points against Palace
Ian Kingston/AFP/Getty Images
Slaven Bilic10 February 2017

It is great to see this morning that Andy Carroll has capped a terrific few weeks for him by winning the Premier League Goal-of-the-Month award for January.

There was some special competition, too, particularly from Olivier Giroud’s spectacular ‘scorpion’ goal against Crystal Palace at the beginning of the month.

I declare my bias, of course, but while trying to be as objective as possible, I agree with the Premier League panel on this one.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan had scored a similar goal in December but Giroud’s was even better, more elegant — and a firm favourite for goal of the season before Andy came along with that unbelievable goal against Crystal Palace.

I am not trying to take anything away from Giroud’s goal but there was an element of “the ball is behind me, so there is nothing else to try — I will give it a go. It could hit me on the backside, I could miss the ball or it could go anywhere — but let’s try”. It was a complete gamble.

There is some luck in almost every goal, of course, but less so with Andy’s. Still you have to be lucky because everything has to come together but with that goal there was technique and a plan, which was executed to perfection. That’s why for me it was the goal of the season so far and it will be very difficult to beat it.

I am hoping Andy will be fit for tomorrow’s match at home against West Brom. He is in great form and so important to us.

Our two news signings, Jose Fonte and Robert Snodgrass, have fitted in really well, exactly as we expected — and wanted.

In Pictures | Southampton vs West Ham | 04/02/2017

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They are both mature men, senior players and they have brought quality, stability and seriousness to the squad. They are both very responsible and reliable players — they have been there and done it.

Loan stars must play if they are to learn

I am hoping that Reece Oxford, in fact all our players who are out on loan, will play regularly because that is the best way, the only way, to progress.

I always say to Terry Westley, who is great at looking after our young players, to try to find a club as high as possible but he has to play.

I think Reece (above) will play at Reading, although the problem may be that he went to a team which is already playing well and is fighting for promotion.

In football, we know there are no guarantees.

Just a word about Pedro Obiang as well. He was outstanding at Southampton and it was a reward for his hard work and application in establishing himself in our team.

Last season, people have said that he didn’t have many opportunities but it took him time to adjust to a different football culture and he was involved in 35 matches, starting 16 of them.

He’s calm, good on the second ball, he thinks about the game, reads it well, has great work-rate and has become much stronger in the challenges compared to last season. He comes out as a winner now in most of them, which is important in this league.

We lost 4-2 to West Brom earlier this season and I remember it well. It was a strange game and we actually played well when we had the ball, especially in the second half.

It was the set-pieces that cost us, though, plus conceding a first-half penalty. They used the momentum well but I don’t remember it as a total negative.After the game, I recall, I didn’t say any good words about our performance. How can you when you have just given away four goals?

Privately, though, I had seen some things which gave me plenty of hope.

Our most recent home match ended up with a heavy defeat against Manchester City and we all want to do much, much better tomorrow in front of our home fans.

With the greatest respect to most other teams, there are not many like Manchester City who can destroy you. If you are not compact and organised, you can very quickly be overwhelmed.

The other problem with that City game was that usually, when you play them, you are defending from the start.

Okay, you may try to go forward but when you lose the ball you quickly go back into your shell.

In this game, it was an even contest before they scored. It wasn’t 30-70 per cent possession. We opened the play against them and when you do that, you can leave yourself exposed, which is what happened.

Which goal was better? Have your say in our poll below

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