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Garry Monk says West Ham's Andy Carroll will be on watch this weekend

Manager Garry Monk admits Swansea must stop Andy Carroll to avenge last month's 3-1 defeat to West Ham at the Liberty Stadium on Saturday.

Carroll has been a thorn in Swansea's side in the past two seasons, making both goals for Kevin Nolan in a 2-0 home victory last term and then scoring twice at Upton Park in December as West Ham overturned an early Wilfried Bony strike to run out comfortable winners.

Monk believes Carroll is the strongest forward in the Premier League and admits much of Swansea's game plan this week has been based on keeping the 6-foot-4 target man quiet.

"It's something we have to put right but he is an incredible player physically," Monk said about the 26-year-old Geordie.

"He is probably the most powerful forward in the Premier League and he has supremacy over everyone.

"Sometimes when the ball in is right, there's not much you can do, but we have to try to stop him and that's something we've been working on.

"We want to put in a performance so we can put our performance down there earlier in the season behind us.

"We just felt disappointed at West Ham because we didn't reach our usual performance level and we don't want to make the same mistake again.

"We didn't give a good account of ourselves and we didn't use our strengths well enough in the game and, hopefully, we can do that better this time."

Swansea would go level on points with seventh-placed West Ham if they beat Sam Allardyce's side, but the build-up to the game has been dominated by the potential loss of top marksman Wilfried Bony to Manchester City.

Bony, who is unavailable on Saturday anyway as he is away with his Ivory Coast national team ahead of the African Nations Cup, is in talks over a 30 million-pound move to the Premier League champions and French forward Bafetimbi Gomis is set to deputise in his absence.

Gomis has also been linked with a move away from Swansea this week with several Premier League rivals reported to be interested in his services, but Monk insists his squad have been fully focused on the challenge ahead rather than being distracted by off-field matters.

"I can assure you the players are focused on West Ham, fully focused," Monk said.

"We were always going to be without Bony in this period anyway and the players knew that. We had already planned for that.

"We will be looking to put a performance on in front of our crowd and we want to do that not just because of our recent performance against West Ham, but because we are in a good position and we want to try to push on in the second half of the season.

"The intensity has gone up in training. I have told the players that I am going to push them harder now because the second half of the season is harder than the first.

"Everyone starts to realise what they are fighting for in the league so I think it becomes harder."

Monk might have lost out to Allardyce in east London last month but he is once again looking forward to pitting his tactical wits against a manager 25 years his senior and with vast managerial experience.

"All credit to him, Sam has shown his experience and is definitely one of the managers of the year," Monk said.

"He has been open-minded and he has adapted and you have to give him massive credit for that.

"It's something I've looked at and it's something to bear in mind for me because he knows his stuff.

"West Ham have been fantastic this season. They have played some great football and they also have Andy Carroll, so they can play more direct if they want to.

"But we have a chance to claw level with them if we get our performance right."

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