Unhappy £9m hotshot nears switch

Carlton Cole will leave West Ham for Liverpool in January.

The Hammers striker was publicly critical of boss Avram Grant after they slumped to 3-0 defeat at Anfield last Saturday and the east London club remain rooted to the bottom of the Premier League.

This has led to speculation that the 27-year-old wants out of Upton Park, with Liverpool reportedly the frontrunners for his signature.

Cole said after the Liverpool loss: "We can come here and talk a good game and say we are going to do this to them and come with a game plan, but we didn't even turn up for this game,

"In the first 10 minutes we had lost the game, psychologically anyway. I'm lost for words now, I can't speak too much because I get emotional with these things and it gets on my nerves and I don't want to talk about certain things.

"I think I had just one cross. Apart from that I had nothing and as a striker, that's starvation, that's famine - what am I supposed to work on?

"I'm deflated. I'm not happy and I hope something can happen as soon as possible because we need to change this asap."

The £9 million-rated England forward was linked with a switch to Anfield during the summer and Liverpool boss Roy Hodgson has recently admitted he was monitoring Cole.

He said: "Cole is a good player and was one of the players I was watching and we were looking at a lot of forwards.

"He was one I watched and we talked about but we didn't make any particular move for him.

"At Liverpool we are always linked with every player but I do like Carlton Cole and think he's a good player, but there was no offer made for him."

Hodgson has made no secret of his desire to add more potency to his Anfield attack after admitting that Liverpool rely too heavily on Kop heroes Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard.

Bolton striker Johan Elmander and Aston Villa winger Ashley Young have both been linked with moves to Anfield as the January transfer window draws closer.

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