Bilic reveals he cannot partner Carroll and Hernandez together

West Ham boss Slaven Bilic believes it is “almost impossible” to partner Andy Carroll and Javier Hernandez in attack despite admitting goalscoring has been a problem this season.

The Hammers welcome Bolton to the London Stadium on Tuesday night for their Carabao Cup third-round clash.

Saturday’s goalless draw at West Brom continued an upturn for Bilic and his side who, after winning at home to Huddersfield last week, have now taken four points from their opening five Premier League games.

West Ham have scored just four league goals despite adding former Manchester United forward Hernandez to their ranks.

Hernandez has been operating on the right of a three-man attack since Carroll’s return, with plenty of West Ham fans calling for the pair to be deployed as a twosome.

Bilic, however, does not feel that is a viable option given the other players he has at his disposal.

“It is almost impossible,” he said.

“It is very hard to put them in their ideal positions as two strikers, which looks good on paper.

“But you want to have a lot of them (best players) on the pitch at the same time.

“Of course I’m thinking about that. Chicharito is playing in a position which is not his position. I spoke with him, he’s a great lad… he’s doing a job of course.”

West Ham’s upturn in form has coincided with Carroll’s return to the side after recovering from another injury, although the England striker will be rested for the clash with Bolton.

The 28-year-old has been plagued by injury setbacks in recent years and Bilic admits he is being handled differently this time around.

“Of course we have to manage him,” he said.

“He looks good, he looks fit, he is training, hopefully he is going to last because that was his problem for ages.

“He isn’t going to play tomorrow for example. We’re going to try to manage him, we tried to last year and two years ago but it didn’t help a lot but this season we are managing him a little bit different.

“We will never rush him…we will try to avoid him playing three games a week let’s say for 90 minutes.”