Andy Carroll -" Liverpool willing to sell "

[MLB]

The games that Luis is banned for (if he is banned) will likely be decisive. If he can get a run going and score a few goas then he can have a future with us. If he continues to play like a drunk Jason Lee then clearly there is nothing down for him.

[TheHowieLama]

The games that Luis is banned for (if he is banned) will likely be decisive. If he can get a run going and score a few goas then he can have a future with us. If he continues to play like a drunk Jason Lee then clearly there is nothing down for him.

 

[Liquid football]

what was the injury he got just before he signed for us? Anything that could have a lasting impact speedwise?

[Guest ShoePiss]

what was the injury he got just before he signed for us? Anything that could have a lasting impact speedwise?

 

It was a thigh injury (muscle tear) that occurred in the December, by the end of Jan they were saying he would be back by the first game in Feb, then he signed for us and was out until what, March?

[piscinin]

what was the injury he got just before he signed for us? Anything that could have a lasting impact speedwise?

 

He fell off a bar stool while trying to balance a tray of 30 jagerbombs.

[Elysian Red]

 

He fell off a bar stool while trying to balance a tray of 30 jagerbombs.

 

His balance is suspect.

[WoOGii]

IFs, BUTs and MAYBEs will get us nowhere - lets just look to the future. We can change the past so why get worked up about it.

[Ezekiel 25:17]

I'll know Carroll has made it when there's a youtube clip comparing him with Riise.

[Stouffer]

We'll be fine when big Emile signs.

[TommyW]

I voted to keep him, the money we paid for him is gone, we'll never get close to that back so on that basis we have a 22 year old who (a year a go at least) had massive potential, better he come good for us than someone else

[Section_31]

All talk of injuries etc is by the bye, because he's the worst trainer at the club - fact - and quite clearly can't be arsed on the pitch. Shearer was covering ten times as much ground as him at age 35 with cruciates like Ron Jeremy's banjo string.

[stringvest]

All talk of injuries etc is by the bye, because he's the worst trainer at the club - fact - and quite clearly can't be arsed on the pitch. Shearer was covering ten times as much ground as him at age 35 with cruciates like Ron Jeremy's banjo string.

 

and like RJ, if they snapped he could bend down and kiss them better

[TheHowieLama]

The Hedgehog never had to kiss it himself...

[billybonzo]

Louise Taylor

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 29 December 2011 19.25 GMT

Article history

 

Liverpool's Andy Carroll is said to spend far too much free time travelling back to Tyneside. Photograph: Alex Morton/Action Images

It is easy to imagine Andy Carroll driving alone in his car with I'm Coming Home Newcastle booming out of the sound system. Horribly sentimental, yet strangely haunting, the old Busker song, later covered by Lindisfarne, echoes around St James' Park in the preamble to kick-off at every Newcastle United home game.

 

The following excerpts capture the tone of unashamedly cheesy lyrics penned for homesick Geordie exiles. "I'm coming home Newcastle, I might as well have been in jail, I'd walk the streets all day all night for a bottle of your own brown ale … I'm coming home Newcastle, if you never win the Cup again, I'll brave the dark at St James' Park on the Gallowgate End in the rain. I'm coming home Newcastle … I'll walk the streets all day all night for a bottle of the River Tyne. I wish I'd never been away. I'd kiss the ground for the welcome sound of my mother saying hinny howay."

 

Forget the right foot often more suited to standing on than scoring with, the sometimes wayward positional sense, the frequent lack of subtle, clever, movement and the concerns about "refuelling", arguably Carroll's biggest problem at Liverpool is that it is not Newcastle. According to reliable sources, Anfield's underachieving centre-forward spends far too much free time travelling back to his beloved Tyneside, visiting family, friends and old haunts.

 

Eleven months after a £35m deadline day transfer to Liverpool and a week before his 23rd birthday, the ties that bind Carroll so tightly to his Geordie roots have yet to loosen appreciably. It seems that a Newcastle team increasingly built around Yohan Cabaye's playmaking skills, a growing possession game and Demba Ba's goals have moved on much faster than their former local hero.

 

While Carroll has been warming Liverpool's bench – and with Fabio Capello expressing disquiet about his off-field habits, also slipping out of England contention – Ba, a devout, teetotal Muslim has established himself as the Gallowgate End's new attacking darling. On Friday night at Anfield, Ba will attempt to extend a scoring streak in which the free transfer signing from West Ham has claimed 14 goals in his past 13 Premier League games while Carroll is expected to replace the suspended Luis Suárez.

 

Kenny Dalglish's players may pine for the Uruguayan, but Alan Pardew's team are not about to underestimate an old friend. Fabricio Coloccini and Mike Williamson, Newcastle's likely central defensive pairing, confronted the 6ft 3in Gateshead-born force of nature often enough in training to fear the undeniable brilliance of a powerfully incisive left foot not to mention that ferociously combative aerial ability.

 

"At his best Andy is virtually unplayable," says Glenn Roeder, one of Carroll's former Newcastle managers. "I played him against John Terry and Sol Campbell in games with Chelsea and Portsmouth and neither could get near Andy in the air."

 

Roeder found Carroll consistently receptive to training ground advice but believes he needs to work hard on improving his right foot, movement outside the box, possession retention and first touch. "If I were Andy I'd get DVDs of Michael Owen, look at his game outside the area and study how he does the simple things wonderfully well," Roeder says.

 

If Liverpool's fluent passing style is mentally and technically more demanding of players than the broadly direct approach adopted by Newcastle during Carroll's brief period in the first XI, it would be very wrong to say he is incapable of rising to the challenge. A forward far better on the ground than generally given credit for possesses sufficient natural talent to successfully reinvent elements of his game.

 

Dalglish, who persistently rebutts doubts about Carroll's lifestyle, has long maintained that the thigh and knee injury which have so disrupted his first year on Merseyside represent the principal reasons for a painfully slow burn start.

 

Those who liken Carroll to Michael Ricketts – the former Bolton Wanderers striker who, a decade ago, briefly took Premier League defences by storm, won an England cap and then swiftly disappeared almost without trace – conveniently ignore a significant difference. While Ricketts concedes he fell out of love with football, Carroll's friends are vehement that, if a certain immaturity, homesickness and lack of match fitness have undeniably held him back, disinterest and disengagement are definitely not among the £35m man's problems.

 

Perhaps a sometime England international who, despite registering 11 goals in 19 appearances for Newcastle early last season, had only been playing Premier League football for five months when he was bundled into Mike Ashley's Anfield bound helicopter is as much in need of regular first-team action as decent left wing crosses from Stewart Downing.

 

Courtesy of the eight-game Football Association ban faced by Suárez in the wake of the Patrice Evra racial abuse case he now seems certain to be granted the former.

 

The vogue joke on Merseyside may be: "News Alert: FA offer Carroll eight game first team run; Liverpool set to appeal" but it could yet morph into a serenade sung to the tune of Neil Diamond "Sweet Carroll-ine."

[BCM]

Its quite Ironic that the two biggest flops of the season, Carroll and Torres are about to get extended run outs at the same time, will be interesting to see what happens.

[Iceman]

I really hope Andy can bag a couple today.

 

Would like to see Spearing and Gerrard play.

 

I think it will be a nervy 2-1. Keep fucking saying this but we have got to get 3 points.

[Gym Beglin]

BCM, I think Torres will flourish with a proper run in the Chelsea team.

Not so sure about Carroll, the weight of that red shirt is massive, especially when we need goals like we do. I feel for Carroll, because the likes of Henderson, Downing, Kuyt, Bellamy, and now Gerrard should be bagging a few goals to help us out, and Suarez could have scored a few more to ease the pressure on us.

 

I'd consider not starting him tonight. Give Bellamy a go, with Gerrard or Maxi in behind.

[James21]

Carroll. 11 in 19 for NUFC

Ba. 14 in 13 for NUFC.

 

 

Does that make Ba worth even 20M?

 

Still, 11 months on, cannot get my head around any upside this deal would even possible have had.

 

Signing an injured striker in January, fucking ridiculous.

If we waited till the summer we could have got him cheaper if we still wanted him, or if we couldnt, no other cunt would be stupid enough to pay 35M so we would have still got him for that price.

 

Makes me sad that we got bids rejected for Gomez and Llorente.

[Paco]

Andy Carroll story on LFC TV now.

 

scheduled to last half an hour.

[Guest LFD]

Big night for Carroll tonight.

 

No Suarez, he has to lead the line. He'll have Gerrard on the field at some point and he could not get better service than that.

 

Prove us all wrong Andy, prove you do have a future with us!

[Red Banjo]

Given his extremely poor form this season - im surprised he's only 5's first goal and only 21's to get a hat-trick.

 

Nonetheless, im on both.

 

Won some money on the darts so its all going back on tonight.

[MLB]

If we set up to get the best out of him then he will score tonight.

[MLB]

That's assuming he starts of course. You never know...

[TheHowieLama]

If we set up to get the best out of him then he will score tonight.

 

What is the set up for this?

[MLB]

What is the set up for this?

 

 

Wide players getting quality balls into the box for him to attack. If Gerrard is fit then I'd play him on the right (for now) with Downing on the left. Spearing and Adam in the middle. If Gerrard doesn't start then probably Bellamy on the left and Downing on the right, probably with Kuyt playing off Carroll to feed on the scraps. Not much point in playing Maxi wide as he better playing in to feet and making little one-twos and the like.