Well Andy Carroll’s career at Liverpool, looks to be over with reportedly just the ‘big mans’ agreement needed to sign off his move to West Ham.
Taking on board Brendan Rodgers comments following his recent chat with Carroll it does seems the former Newcastle striker will leave for the East London club.
Carroll scores the winner in the 2012 FA Cup Semi-Final
The Liverpool manager said, “It was just a general conversation in terms of the experience of getting out and playing. He enjoyed that apart from the injury. At the start of the whole thing was about getting games because he wasn’t going to be a starter here. We will talk again with him and the club to see how it all evolves. It’s one one of those situations where it will probably be resolved a lot quicker than that for both parties.”
We need to add to the striking ranks and whether it’s the return of Carroll or bringing in a striker to replace him the decision has to be taken soon.
Rodgers finished by saying, “It’s a difficult one. I spoke to him and we had a good chat. The boy is a talent. It’s just something we need to assess between now and the end of the window. In terms of the money, that’s something out of my control. But he’s a talent so we assess the whole situation. The objective at the beginning of the season was for him to go out and play. He’s gone away to think of what we spoke about and we will talk again through the weeks.”
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| Decision time for Carroll |
Does that sound like the door has been firmly close on Carroll? The talk of assessing the whole situation... does that include Fabio Borini’s future too?
It begs the question whether Rodgers wants similar type players all over the pitch or is he open to the flexibility of having a player like Carroll in his ranks? Flexibility in approach lends itself to being able to adapt to different circumstances. Even Barcelona, found it difficult to match the intensity and ferocity intertwined with the technical expertise of the German’s and other teams, not possessing the physicality or the stature to combat the different threats even in La Liga which is strange to say as they easily won La Liga, but teams were more combative and structured against them this year and at times they struggled to overcome the challenge.
We need an approach in the transfer market to close the gap with the big four and we may already have a player in Carroll to increase the depth in quality of the squad, but if we do let him go and Borini is seeing as the third striker Rodgers will still needs another option and whether that is by courage of his convictions to go into the transfer market and bring in a quality striker or pitch the likes of Michael Ngoo or Adam Morgan into the fore which would be more in line with the diktat espoused by the Fenway Sports Group.
Borini returned in determined fashioned towards the end of the season producing some impressive cameos and I have for a while suspected we may not as yet seen the skills which have propelled him to the Italian full-squad and why the Italians rate the ex-Bologna striker so highly.
If it were up to me it would be Carroll as he offers a different threat to any player in the squad and I believe will only improve as he gets stronger and more powerful and as his technique improves with experience his threat levels will rise exponentially.
Fabio Borini scores his first Anfield goal
Dont think thats the right conversation for him to have. If the boy has talent, lets help him realise it here! Basically he should simply be saying stay and fight for your place. However, you will start at least 25 games if you're in good nick.
ReplyDeleteBoth Karl and I agreed that Carroll was by far the better option and the better goal threat – I especially feel that Borini will not cut it at LFC long term.
DeleteWhat do the rest of you think?
None of them but I might say Carroll, Borini is just Borin without the I.
DeleteMerv
It’s almost a case of the cure being worse than the disease. Borini through no fault of his own is a championship player who has found himself at a top premier league club which is the same argument you could apply to Carroll. Neither of them will cut it long term.
DeleteFor me Borini is the better option only because the loss to the club will only be £10M when he fails.
Carroll is on about 70 grand a week, Borini would be on 20-30 tops. Neither of them will get much game time next season so it makes season so it makes sense to keep the cheaper one. However from a purely footballing standpoint, Carroll is more effective.
DeleteI heard a rumour doing the rounds that we were waiting for the Carroll deal to be done before we made a solid offer for Christian Eriksen of Ajax so this deal might take off as long as the big tree is happy to take a pay cut to join Fat Sam permanently.
What Carrol offer, though it might not be world beating at this stage of his career, is a different option to what we currently have within the squad. Borin(g), as Merv suggests, is hardly exciting. Although again at this stage of his career. In the positions that Borini has played in so far, Downing, Coutinho, Henderson and Sturridge have all occupied that role. I’d have kept Carroll another season or until we have a ready made replacement, signed on the dotted line.
DeleteI agree that carool probably offers more than borini but share barry's view that carroll's massive wages couple with fact we can get £15 million for him, and fact that he clearly isn't a rodgers type player mean it makes much more sense to move him on. If an Italian side came in and offered decent amount for borini I'd bit their hands off....
DeleteHaving said that, whilst I have seen very little (aside from his effort againt fulham that game back of the post) to suggest borini will prove doubters wrong (myself included) think it should be remembered that he was injured for the majority of the season, and the examples of Lucas and to a lessor extent henderson show that a much maligned start to an anfield career is not always conclusive proof that a player isn't up to it.
On eriksen - I have always heard great things but on the few occassions I've seen him play have been a bit underwhelmed and I think a good defensive midfielder/phyiscal midfield presence should be more of a priority than spending a huge portion of our budget on an attacking midfielder when Coutihno is looking so at home in that role....hard not to get too excited by the magic little brazilian....don't think we have had a player with such a unique eye for a pass in all the time I have been watching liverpool, with possible exception of litmanen's brief cameo!
At this moment in time Andy Carroll is winning 6-1 – Any Borini fans out there apart from my boy the Analyser ??? LOL
DeleteI was in the borini camp with the analyser, despite thinking carroll a better player (and think Baz might be in same boat)! Think unless we were prepared to offer carroll regular starting opportunities, which look unlikely with suarez and sturridge around, we need to cut our hug losses. Borini in terms of wages and profile is much more suited playing third fiddle. One thing I do like about borini, clutching at straws here, is that he seems to take up good positions and think he could prove useful off the bench next year....I just never want to see him playing in one of the wide positions as can't see him ever being effective from there.....
DeleteWill be interesting to see what happens with likes of sterling, shelvey and wisdom, and also the younger/less established ones like suso, ibe, robinson, texiera. Some of them would surely benefit from a loan to a prem team if first team opportunities are going to limited, especially with no europa league....
I would like to see Rodgers really mould the team in his image and if the likes of Carroll and Downing don’t fit then let them know its reserve team football or the exit.
DeleteWe’ll never know if the younger players like Suso, Wisdom and even Sterling will be good enough if they don’t get regular playing time, sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and throw them in for a run of games.
Keeping Borini as a squad player would be fine especially as he’s not costing us the GDP of a small country when he’s not playing. Carroll offers nothing to the style of play Rodgers is attempting to adopt apart from slowing down every attack.
Good question, I know Caroll did not light up for us, but every team needs a Plan B, and this is where he could have come in. Knocking balls of his head etc. But I don’t think he would have settled for being on the bench for us, coming on every other game. His been doing well for WH, and it’s probably best for him to carry on getting 1st play.
DeleteHe was never a £35 million price tag, so we would have never got the return price.
we just stupid to pay that, our loss WH full benefit.
Simply not in BR system of play.
Good luck to the Pony.
In a choice between the two - Carroll – just because he’s a big unit.
DeleteAnd I can’t think of a single unique selling point that Borini has to distinguish him from any very average squad forward.
Robert
Updated stats Carroll is leading 7-2!
DeleteFor me it's has to be Carroll. It bothers me that there is a propensity to go for similar styled players and if you have three or four strikers surely they should bring something different to the table. It's not just a plan b option of the bench, it's an option of sometimes going a different way re formations etc Yes Borini seemed a lot more sharp in the last few games.
DeleteNo problem buying fast skillful players, but we need some physicality in the team and that's not just having Carroll in the squad. We can barely defend sent pieces and corners because of our lack of height.
For me with slight reservation I have to go for Carroll.
DeleteValarie
Carroll, if he’d stay, to be used for the more physical teams or when a change in tactics is called for. What surprised me this year is how quickly the flare associated with Spanish/South American style of football was countered by the technical and direct approach as demonstrated by the Champions League results (although its only one season). Rogers direction for the club will certainly be more enjoyable to watch but how successful will it be?? A right balance needs to be found whereby we have a squad that can play and hold their own against most teams in Europe (if and when we get back there) let alone the Premiership. From what I have seen this season (granted it hasn’t been as extensive as others) relying heavily on our “big” defenders for set pieces in the opponents goal area is our only aerial threat against most teams. But the use of such tactics is not significant in Rogers’ play book, so I think Carroll would not hang around for the odd occasion when (if?) this was called for. That’s my 2 pence for what its worth.
DeleteFalil
Excellent summary Falil.
DeleteThe score is now 10-2 so I think that we can safely say that Carroll has won this vote. We all know that the manager is very much set in his ways and will therefore give Borini at least another season to prove himself.
Carroll has not been given the same chance mainly because of the type of player he is. He will definitely leave in the summer.
Thanks to everyone for their responses on this discussion
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ReplyDeleteI suppose you’ve probably all heard by now but Begovic is being quoted across the media as saying that he wants to joint up with Liverpool to start pre season on 10th July. It sounds like he reckons he’ll be moving to Merseyside, a price of £15 million (ouch!) has apparently been agreed.
ReplyDeleteIf this is true it’s a massive change to the defensive base of the team. If we lose both Reina and Carra we’ve lost two of the biggest leaders on the pitch and in the dressing room.
Not heard the figure that has been stated but £15m seems a bit steep
DeleteThe cheerleader Reina will be leaving in the summer as well – I believe but ultimately he is a better keeper than Begovic.
Heard that Shelvey may be on his way to West Ham – we nned to try and get more than £5m !!!!