West Ham United boss Sam Allardyce admits their pursuit of Liverpool striker Andy Carroll is over.

West Ham made an audacious bid to prise the £35million striker from Anfield but were thwarted.

"We never agreed with Liverpool any deal to be able to speak to Andy Carroll to see if he would join us," Allardyce said.

"Whatever deal we put forward to Liverpool was not agreed to by Liverpool. He would have been a massive signing for us and, like everything else, when you see an opportunity you try to go for it.

"Then you get onto negotiations and once that is exhausted you move on, which was a lot sooner than people actually talked about in the media.

"The negotiations were over in a couple of weeks or so regarding whether Andy was or wasn't going to come to West Ham."