West Ham United boss Slaven Bilic confirmed that Andy Carroll will be missing for "a few weeks" with injury after being left out of the squad to face Bournemouth on Sunday.
The Premier League side have a number of players out at the start of the new season, but Carroll and team mate Dimitri Payet were surprise exclusions at London Stadium having featured on Monday at Chelsea.
"We are without a few players, some of them are going to be out long term, some of them are going to be back for the next game," he told Sky Sports pre-match, before addressing Carroll's situation following reports on Sunday that the England international was facing up to six weeks on the sidelines with a knee injury.
"You're asking me about him, okay. It depends what you mean by long term, but I say a few weeks," Bilic explained.
"It's not ideal, but it's a situation we have to cope with. We don't want to moan. We have a good team and we're expecting to play a good game."
Carroll took to Twitter ahead of the match, claiming he will recover to play a big part this season despite another setback.
"Devastated about my recent injured [sic] but I'm still the 15-20 goal man," he wrote.
Bilic added that, with Payet feeling a strain after the Chelsea game, it was too much of a risk to play him against Bournemouth.
"[Payet] was okay and then he felt something against Chelsea, after the game," he said.
"It's nothing big, he's back in training, but it's too early and the risk would be enormous.
"Everybody knows what he means for us, and, of course, we would have loved for him to play, but it was impossible."
