Swansea City midfielder Tom Carroll has admitted that his form this season has been ‘hot and cold’ as he aims to offer more during the season run-in.
The comments from the former Spurs man came after Saturday’s 2-0 defeat away at Manchester United, in which Carroll came on at the start of the second half – along with striker Tammy Abraham – as Carvalhal tried to give his side an attacking boost at the restart with his side 2-0 down.
Carroll was honest about his form this season, it was particularly poor under previous coach Paul Clement, but he was far from the only player to severely struggle in the first half of the year but you could argue that Carroll was up at the top of the list for worst performers.
Given set piece duties after Sigurdsson’s big summer move didn’t help either, as his poor corner kicks in particular that sometimes led to opposition counter-attacks didn’t go down well at all with the fans, and added to the mistakes he was making in open play.
However, he has shown some signs of improvement here and there under Carvalhal, although – and he admitted this too – his performance in the FA Cup at home to his former club Spurs was awful.
He did quite well in the defeat at Brighton before being unfortunate to be replaced early in the second half. There was also one or two decent displays in the FA Cup as well as a solid performance at Old Trafford at the weekend.
Carroll said:
“I felt good with my passing and I managed to get myself into space. I know I am capable of performing like that, I just need to do it more often because I was really disappointed with how the Tottenham game went, both individually and collectively.
“It has been a hot and cold season for me, I have to be honest about that but there are a few games left and I want to be involved and do everything I can.”
Carroll has struggled for games recently after a drop in performance and the loan arrival of Andy King, but he remains hopeful of getting more game time in the remaining seven games of the season.
He’s still not shown enough signs yet that he deserves to be back in the starting eleven, but with Ki struggling at Old Trafford and his Swansea career most likely coming to an end, Tom might find himself back in the team before too long – especially if there’s bad news on Sam Clucas’ injury.
What did you make of his performance at Manchester United? Should he be back in the starting eleven? Let us know what you think below…
