West Ham United boss Sam Allardyce stands by his decision to buy Andy Carroll ahead of Wilfried Bony.

Big Sam wrote in the London Evening Standard: "The first big transfer of this January could be Wilfried Bony's £30million move from Swansea to Manchester City.

"Bony is a player who could have come to us a couple of seasons back. David Sullivan has said recently that he could have signed him for £8m but that I wanted Andy Carroll.

"My recollection was that, yes, we knew about Bony but we all agreed to go for Carroll - with the caveat that if the deal didn't work out for any reason, we would switch to Bony.

"Whatever anyone says now, at the time a bid for Bony, unproven in English football, would have represented a bigger risk than Andy, an established Premier League player.

"The likelihood of achieving success, had we signed Bony, was far less than with Carroll. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but, at the time, we were looking at these two possibilities.

"In my experience over more than two decades in football management, you always have to minimise the risk."