West Brom set to sign Andy Carroll on short-term deal

Andy Carroll is poised to join West Brom until the end of the season, boss Valerien Ismael has confirmed.

The striker, a free agent after his deal at Reading ended earlier this month, has passed a medical with the Baggies.

Albion have moved for the former Liverpool and Newcastle forward after Daryl Dike suffered a hamstring injury on his full debut against Peterborough which will rule him out for eight weeks.

Dike only moved to the Hawthorns from Orlando City for £7million at the start of the month.

Ismael said: “Yes, he (Carroll) has passed his medical. We cannot confirm officially just yet but if everything goes right he will sign.

“We have got the long-term solution with Dike, a long-term number nine, but unfortunately he is injured. We sat with the board and staff, we analysed the situation and it was clear we had to do something.

“Is someone able to help us, to suit our way of playing? We saw in the first start with Dike he got five chances to score and you could see how important it was to get the target guy in the box.

“Andy can help us to get exactly the power we need in the box.”

Ismael also insisted he had resolved the “internal issue” with Sam Johnstone which saw him left out of the squad for Wednesday’s 2-0 home defeat to Preston.

The England goalkeeper will also not play at Millwall on Saturday.

“We had a matter, we have solved it now and the sanction was that he was not available for the games for Preston and tomorrow. After that he will be back on track,” said Ismael.

The Baggies were booed off after losing to Preston, with fans taking aim at Ismael.

Supporters are unhappy with his style and, with fifth-placed Albion dropping seven points behind the top two in the Championship, the head coach knows he is