• ‘No one player is going to destroy anything’ says rejuvenated striker • Slaven Bilic says happy private life is key to Carroll’s resurgence

Andy Carroll has revealed that West Ham United’s players have resolved not to allow the striking Dimitri Payet to “destroy” their season and believes the squad’s anger with the France midfielder is bonding them to match-winning effect.

With Payet once again absent after downing tools in an attempt to provoke a transfer to Marseille, Slaven Bilic’s side recorded their fifth victory in seven Premier League games at Middlesbrough on Saturday, with the near unplayable Carroll scoring twice.

“Our response [to Payet’s strike] just proves what the lads have got deep down in themselves,” said the centre-forward, whose link and hold-up play proved of the highest quality on a day when Bilic’s erstwhile star creator was not missed.

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“It proves our passion for football, for the manager and for our club. It’s everything. No one player is going to destroy anything. The fight the lads have and the fans standing behind us has all been great. It’s a very tight-knit group, certainly the tightest it’s been since I joined West Ham. It’s great just walking into the dressing room every morning.

“The lads have always got a smile on their faces, even when the manager has dragged us in on a Sunday morning when we don’t really want to be there because we’re supposed to be off. Instead of being upset, we’re walking in smiling. It’s just a tight, tight group. We’re all in one big messaging group. Everyone has an input. Everyone’s chatting every day. Everyone’s together and we’ll have banter about absolutely anything and everything.“

Payet has already been excluded from that social media messaging network and, having seemingly burnt his bridges in east London, can only hope Marseille match West Ham’s valuation by the middle of next week. “We’re not asking for anything crazy,” shrugged Bilic, who said he had “nothing new” to report on the errant player’s movements but conceded he would be “ridiculous” to say his team were better off without his talent.

Although West Ham’s manager also reflected that the Payet furore had galvanised his team – “Sometimes you lose something and you gain something,” he said – Bilic knows that Carroll’s latest return to form and fitness has arrived at an opportune moment.

Middlesbrough certainly had no answer to either the ferocious header with which he gave Bilic’s team the lead or the left-foot shot that restored West Ham’s lead before Jonathan Calleri – on after Carroll was withdrawn with a tight groin – made it 3-1 in stoppage time.

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Maintaining his substitution had been merely “precautionary”, West Ham’s No9 felt sufficiently emboldened to talk of both an England recall and an injury-free future. “I’d love to be back in the England squad,” said Carroll. “Right now, it’s important to just concentrate on West Ham but, if the call comes, fantastic. That’s what I want.

“Everyone talks about my injuries and I can’t really say that’s unfair because over the years I haven’t been as fit as I’ve wanted to be but hopefully that’s all in the past. I’m looking forward to many years of injury-free football. I’m 28 now and I want and need those injuries to be firmly in the past so I can play the last few years of my career injury-free.”

Bilic trusts that Carroll’s new-found off-field contentment will help achieve this aim. “Andy’s very happy in his private life,” he said. “I think he’s found his peace, he’s 100% fit and there’s no reason why he shouldn’t now enter his best five years of football.”

Aitor Karanka’s mood was somewhat less sunny. Middlesbrough’s manager was not only unhappy that Hull City had rejected his £8m offer for Robert Snodgrass, the Scotland winger, but, much more contentiously, with the Riverside crowd for urging his team to attack in the closing stages.

“The atmosphere was awful,” said Karanka. “They have small memories. They demanded too much. I don’t know how many thousands of people were asking for long balls but it’s a style we don’t know how to play and the team was broken on the pitch. I was really upset. It’s something we have to fix – and while I’m here we won’t be playing long balls.”