Liverpool Captain Steven Gerrard has suggested that the club may have made a mistake with its handling of Andy Carroll in his first 6 months at Anfield.
Gerrard hints that Carroll may have been rushed back from injury too quickly, and suggests that this may have had a negative impact on the player.
Gerrard, who is recovering from injury himself at the moment, observed:
"For me, Andy arrived with an injury and probably wanted to play very early on because he'd signed in such a fashion. I think he probably paid the price for that.
Gerrard seems to be suggesting that Carroll was rushed back from injury too fast, which is probably true. He also intimates that it was Carroll pushing to play and prove himself; be that as it may, the club still has final say on whether he gets on the pitch, so if Gerrard is right and Carroll 'paid the price', then the medical and coaching staff is arguably at fault for that.
Gerrard also suggested that the club's new players may be struggling to come to terms with what it means to play for a club like Liverpool:
"At some other places you can get away with performances that simply aren't good enough, but at Liverpool, your standards have got to be high every single week.
"I think you have to realise that this club is different to most others. The pressure is different because you have to win every game. The fans demand not just the effort, but quality in every single game.
"You have to perform every time; that's what I've had to do every year, and that's what the new lads are coming to terms with.
Ultimately, Gerrard has faith in Carroll, and he's confident he will do the business for Liverpool in the long term:
"A lot of people are talking about him [Carroll] but we're delighted to have him here. "He's worked his socks off in training and in games, and scored a few goals. He's doing his job for the team and we know there is still more to come from him".
Jaimie Kanwar
Gerrard hints that Carroll may have been rushed back from injury too quickly, and suggests that this may have had a negative impact on the player.
Gerrard, who is recovering from injury himself at the moment, observed:
"For me, Andy arrived with an injury and probably wanted to play very early on because he'd signed in such a fashion. I think he probably paid the price for that.
Gerrard seems to be suggesting that Carroll was rushed back from injury too fast, which is probably true. He also intimates that it was Carroll pushing to play and prove himself; be that as it may, the club still has final say on whether he gets on the pitch, so if Gerrard is right and Carroll 'paid the price', then the medical and coaching staff is arguably at fault for that.
Gerrard also suggested that the club's new players may be struggling to come to terms with what it means to play for a club like Liverpool:
"At some other places you can get away with performances that simply aren't good enough, but at Liverpool, your standards have got to be high every single week.
"I think you have to realise that this club is different to most others. The pressure is different because you have to win every game. The fans demand not just the effort, but quality in every single game.
"You have to perform every time; that's what I've had to do every year, and that's what the new lads are coming to terms with.
Ultimately, Gerrard has faith in Carroll, and he's confident he will do the business for Liverpool in the long term:
"A lot of people are talking about him [Carroll] but we're delighted to have him here. "He's worked his socks off in training and in games, and scored a few goals. He's doing his job for the team and we know there is still more to come from him".
Jaimie Kanwar
Change the bloody headline! Very deceiving.
ReplyDeleteHow is it deceiving? As the headline suggests, Gerrard is hinting that the club made a mistake in rushing Carroll back from injury. It's deceiving because of your personal expectations - you were probably expecting Gerrard to say that signing Carroll was a mistake, right?
ReplyDeleteno, paul is right jamie. your headline is misleading. stop tryin to analyse everyone.
ReplyDeleteJamie, I respect your work but this is the second time that I will have had to mention to you over your misleading headlines. If you keep this up then you will be entering the realm of Koptalk, and you do not want that.
ReplyDeleteYour posts are good enough without the need to sensationalise
Jaimie while i admire the brutal honesty of your site. I find it slightly hypocritical that many of you headlines are misleading.
ReplyDeleteYes we know that Carroll is not "the full shilling" footballwise but we can only pray that as we have him then , being young, he will eventually come good. But when? Anyone's guess!
ReplyDeleteI still have faith in him. The form he had at Newcastle doesn't come by itself - he has it, and IMO he was good during January to May last season. There is something that needs slight change - might be tactics, might be his positioning, might be this injury thing.
ReplyDelete£35m making him the 8th most expensive footballer in history and he only played a dozen games in the premiership before Dalglish paid this obscene sum.Surely for this amount of money which was all payed up front you would want the finished article,Van Persie,David Villa,not an unproven player.Surely it would have made sense to get a proven experienced player and slowly integrate some of the academy players just like man utd do.If Dalglish is going to spend hundreds of millions on young unproven players,this must surely be demoralising for the young players already at the club.
ReplyDeleteThey're only misleading because of your personal expectations; if you don't get what you want from the article then you'll obviously feel it's misleading. Let me ask you this: Does Gerrard suggest that the club made a mistake with the handling of Carroll's return from injury? The answer is clearly yes; he says Carroll 'paid the price'. You have to pay the price for something, no? Gerrard is suggesting that Carroll 'paid the price' for a mistake, and I think it's possible to infer he means the club.
ReplyDeleteGerrard has always been careful not to slag his team mates, bar one Diouf.
ReplyDeleteCarroll is a mistake. He has had more than enough time to settle down into the team. I have watched all his games so far. His movements off the ball are good enough to get him into the Under-13 squad. 14 years onwards, there is only one place for Carroll - The Bench
He said Carroll paid the price of HIM wanting to play very early! not the club mate. if the lad said he was ready and could play, that doesnt mean its Liverpool fault!
ReplyDeleteHe is like a donkey, his footwork and balance is poor, his holding up play hasnt been great, his knock ons have been poor and without any sort of direction, first touch has been bad, he has no acceleration when taking on a man (which is why he never does try) although would maybe do well in a 100m sprint. I havent seen his so called aerial prowess either... He has a decent left foot though, Ill give him that.
ReplyDeleteWe need another striker that is similar to Torres... Carroll gives us options and I would play him in away games vs teams like Wolves and Wigan but he isnt really that good an option for home games because he is mostly at fault for us losing and not keeping possession albeit not always his fault with the hoofs.
Someone like Doumbia from CSKA would be good because he is almost identical to Torres in playing style. Maybe Higuain also?
P.S just to clarify, not Higuain and Doumbia, it was an alternative suggestion...
ReplyDeleteUnsleeping negativity by the same old boring LFC web fans band...
ReplyDeleteGet a life or change your own Club, please....
We dominated Chelsea for 45 mins getting a well deserved crucial three point.
Comebackraffa or please bring back Raffa ecc ecc ecc, You're boring, with your boring, predictable, tiredlessy negativity and destructive approach. You're persistently blatant and I'm tired of all your usual insults against the Manager.
If anything is wrong for You, CHANGE YOUR CLUB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is the club's fault because they should make the decision on whether to play, not Carroll. Even if he's really enthusiastic and committed, the medical staff should reign him in and tell him he's not ready.
ReplyDeleteI'll give you credit for attracting readers with your headlines... I want to know what you make of the Agger Skrtel combination and the future of Carra in the team?
ReplyDeletecarroll's performance yesterday was like watching a car crash in the few minutes he had,his first touch was like watching heskey in a red shirt again.
ReplyDeleteam hoping he'll come good but can't see it happening to be honest,he just doesn't seem good enough to be a liverpool player.
Medicine isn't magic mate. At some point, you have to ask the player how it feels, can you play on it and not just in training which won't be as intense.
ReplyDeletedon't be a dork. it's fine to criticise his purchase, but the fee wasn't down to us.
ReplyDeleteThe deal was Carroll plus £15m for Torres, we didn't care what his price was because we were only ever going to get £15m plus the big man.
Jees, remind me not to ask you to pass the salt!
ReplyDeleteI have to say I agree with Joshua. Jaimie you are very good at defending yourself, but you know deep down that you use somewhat misleading & controversial headlines to attract your readership. It works though. I'll give you that! It does make you look a bit like an attention seeker though, so I generally don't take you very seriously. You claim to like dishing out honest opinion, so I trust you can take it too.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid fitness has nothing to do with his technique which is poor. He would be an excellent player for Newcastle Utd who have utilised this type of centre forward since the days of' Wor Jackie' Milburn but Liverpool arent Newcastle Utd.
ReplyDeleteStevie's right on Carroll.
ReplyDeleteAlso, what Stevie got right is the mentality of the new players. But he's the Captain Fantastic, and a Liverpool's talismanic player. It should be his and Carra's moral responsibility to get that mentality into the new players' heads. I guess they do it, it only takes time. And for example, a massive win like yesterday away v Chelsea should certainly play a positive role in instilling that mentality: now they SEE LIVE, not only hear from veterans that they are indeed BIG, and they CAN and SHOULD WIN against other big clubs, let alone the smaller ones.
That being said, here's a small question to Jaimie: I remember you were very critical of Agger's post-match interview a couple of weeks ago, so that you posted a few articles demanding that serious actions be taken against Agger for breach of the "Liverpool Way".
But what Stevie says touches the club's internal affairs deeper than Agger's simple criticism of a match performance voiced after a bad game. And yet I don't see you being as harsh on Stevie as you were on Agger. Double standards?
Now, I don't mean to say that you now should pour a bucket of $hite on Stevie's head... what I am suggesting is that maybe you should treat our other players with the same respect as Gerrard and some ex-players who you invariably refer to as club legends?
Gerrard's comments are nowhere near the same as Agger's, and if you think they are, then you are clearly not being objective. Gerrard hasn't cast aspersions against the commitment of his fellow players; he's merely suggested that Carroll needed more time to recover from injury, which is hardly controversial.
ReplyDeleteI treat all players the same, and if you look back through the article history, you will find my articles where I've slammed Gerrard for his public comments.
Lol Misleading headline is an understatment. Gerrard says nothing of the sort.
ReplyDeleteJaimie
ReplyDeleteI honestly think Gerrard is referring to Carroll's price tag when saying
"because he'd signed in such a fashion. I think he probably paid the price for that."I think it is unbelievably pathetic how some of our fans don't want to give youngsters like Henderson and Carroll a chance. They are 21 & 22, have they even reached their full potential yet as players? Sunderland and Newcastle? Wouldn't you say that Liverpool is one hell of a major step up from the clubs they used to play for and won't that take time for them to adjust and find their feet at a club much much bigger than their former clubs? FFS I am 100% more positive about having Carroll instead of Ngog, Javanovic and Voronin...We go on about Carroll. What about the money wasted on Keane who Rafa admitted to signing (not Parry) in "an Audience with Rafa". Then Rafa sold him months later at something like an 8 million loss? Now that is what you call pissing money down the drain.Seriously, you people need to stop looking at the 35mil and 16mil price tags Carroll and Henderson came with. If you were a player of 21 or 22 and had the opportunity to play for the greatest club in the world but knew that you were English and your club will not ask a small amount would anyone who is questioning their price and judging them on their price tag say no to LFC? Pathetic really. Guess they will have to prove all of you wrong and I have the most positive gut feeling that they will be zipping plenty of traps in the years to come. The silence will be deafening :) After all, I doubt we signed Carroll and Henderson as a quick fix :)
I agree with Joshua, it's all about getting eyeballs for advertising. Jaimie, one more and its the last time I click on your site.
ReplyDeleteEPIC SPOT ON. BRILLIANT POST.
ReplyDeleteALL of the headlines on this site in recent times have been overly provocative in order to bring in readers and earn Jaime money from the sponsors he's now decided to use. It's a clear motive to earn money, nothing more. If you don't like this approach then you best stop visiting the site (or check to see whether the leading headlines from NewsNow etc. are from Liverpool-Kop).
ReplyDeleteTotally agree
ReplyDeleteCarroll is an average player, nothing more, nothing less. The only quality he has is a good left foot, that's it. Shocking we actually bought him.
ReplyDeleteA club like LFC cannot settle for average players, we are a world class team and need players who can prove their worth.
Another clinical striker is needed to assist Suarez or to come on as a sub.
YNWA
Totally misleading headline designed to get people to read the article
ReplyDeleteHe's a magnificent striker, physycally strong, with a good header & balance.
ReplyDeleteHe's doing well for the team, providing good balls for his team mates. He played several good games. He's only 21 years old and He needs time to get used with the Club: You're an useless fickle fan. We don't need You. Fuck off. Come On Andy!!!
Frankly speaking he will come off a fanstatic player if all of you give him space. It happened to OUR mid-fielder Lucas. He was critised so much that if he were not determined to prove himself, he would have jumped off the "cliff" with all of you badgering him. Give AC a break and let him come slowly but surely. YNWA, AC
ReplyDeleteHey Jaimie
ReplyDeleteall right so when agger comes out and tells the truth about the club he gets slated by lfc legends and jamie. Now that Gerrard has come out and criticized the clubs handling of carroll jamie backs him and no slating from the lfc legends. In my opinion carroll was biggest mistake in clubs history. why spend 35mil on him when you could buy podolski for 15m or adebayor for 18m. Mario Gomez would have cost us 5m more than carroll and look at his form for bayern. in the end the club gives the excuse that they needed a replacement immedietly but carroll didnt even make 8 appearances last season coz kuyt played so well with suarez. suarez cant even play with carroll and suarez bellamy are our best strikeforce. lfc have made qualifying for CL a lot tougher than it could have been but alas im not in charge of the club and there is probably a good reason for that
ReplyDeletehe will be sold in 2 seasons time
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of a headline is to grab the attention of readers and prompt them to read the story. Technically, the headline to this post served that purpose quite brilliantly; it got people to click and read. It is a clever headline but I do feel that it is misleading and somewhat unfair on Mr. Carroll. It very subtly implies that Gerrard has his concerns about the signing of Carroll when, in fact, his concern is about him being rushed back from injury. I know, I know....you'll respond with "where do I say this" and "where do I state that" but you knew exactly what you were doing when you wrote the headline. As I said, smart but not entirely fair imho. You could have made the headline more representative of the actual story had you added three simple words to the end: "STEVEN GERRARD: Liverpool may have made a mistake with Andy Carroll's return from injury..."
ReplyDeleteBut then again, that may not have achieved as many clicks ;-)
it is mis leading because nowhere does Gerrard say the club rushed Carroll back. He clearly said he (Carroll) rushed back and paid the price. It is not possible to infer he means the club. And where does Gerrard say 'mistake'??
ReplyDeleteagreed
ReplyDeleteHello
ReplyDeletePure and useless negative approach
ReplyDeleteI can't heard these pathetic critics against AC: You're comparing Gomez, Podolsky, Adebayor, Who are all strikers in the pinnacle of their career, with a 20 yrs old young guy from Newcastle, Who clearly needs time to improve as a player and man but clearly He has the right quality to succeed on long term for the Club. In add, You're totally destroying a striker Who has five years left on his contract after 11 games. These sound like the more unfair & pathetic critics that I never heard. Give a good thing for the Club: give a break to Andy Carroll. Fortunately, not all LFC FANS have your negative & play station mentality.
ReplyDeleteLiverpool plan on long term basis and this is the reason why Carroll is here: to stay for the long term. If You want a super - market Club with the money to make you happy with your play station dream team, the door is alwasy open at Etihad Stadium or Silent Bridge.
ReplyDeleteThis myth perpetuated by Dalglish sympathisers that paying £35m for Carroll was actually linked to what LFC recieved for Torres is bull.LFC had £50m for Torres they could then spend the money as they chose to spend it.The King in his wisdom chose to spend it on Carroll and then said he doesnt know how best to fit him in yet.The King also chose to spend the money on an injured Carroll,The Kings choice again.All the flak Rafa took for buying Aquilani with an injury,yet the King gets no criticism whatsoever for buying Carroll injured and paying twice his real value.Sunday was a great result but i thought it was a good time to play chelsea as they clearly lacked confidence,JT has a lifetime ban hanging over him and their aged players are being found out,also their defense is all over the place.Great to see Reinas world class save Johnsons great goal and Maxis intelligent running to find space to score a great goal,thank god some of Rafas signings are still here for us to rely on.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to my comment on this post? It was respectful and not in any way profane or inappropriate. Or is it just "lost in the system"?
ReplyDeleteAgree with joshua that this headline is very misleading. Looking at Gerrard's statement, he had only mentioned Carroll's aspiration to play early. At no place he has mentioned the club, including when saying "...because he's signed in such a fashion". It refers to Carroll's eagerness to play to prove himself for the 35m pricetag. And IF JK to 'assume', or 'read between the lines' that Gerrard had mentioned the club in any way, it CANNOT be the headline. How come a never-said statement can make a good headline? If JK feels he has a right to assume Gerrard had mentioned the club, and putting it as headline is what we called in journalism as spinning. To be honest, i admire most of JK's articles, but not the headlines which is some misleading and not giving the right picture. An excellent headline must give the accurate and complete overview of it's content to the readers. This kind of misleading headline can be acceptable in profit-making newspapers, but not at liverpool-kop.com which followed by true liverpool fans.
ReplyDeleteAndy Carroll is a worse player than RYAN BABEL...at the SAME AGE but he's white and he's British so lets give him all the time he needs....hypocrites!
ReplyDeletejaime its misleading cuzz everyone will probably thought 'made a mistake about buying adny carroll'
ReplyDeletemonsieur kanwar stirs the pot with a bit of juicy controversy in order to get you to click on his articles & please his advertisers...cash is king my mate...
ReplyDeleteAlthough the first thing that comes to mind is, you're a pretty optimistic guy, I agree with everything you said. Patience is what some supporters need. There's people who actually spend their hard earned money to watch these matches and have more faith in Carroll and Henderson than some of you.
ReplyDeleteI think carroll was a waste of money. he cost us 35m thats a bigger a joke than spendin 50m on nando. why didnt we just wait till summer and buy someone cheaper or better. I would have taken danny graham of swansea over AC. Carroll is a lightweight version of Drogba and in my opinion will never be as good as drogba. He cant do anything on the pitch besides head the ball or tap in crosses so an mls striker would have been a better deal than this guy and u say im negative well i its hard not to be when you spend almost as much as man city and are still drawing at home with (in all due respect to norwich and swansea) mediocre teams.
ReplyDeletespot on
ReplyDeleteI understand your sentiments, his Newcastle form does not come by accident because he was brought up on their systems and therefore may have showed a great deal of potential simply because he knows the system from early on.
ReplyDeleteThe only problem is you can name a lot of players who were similarly good for one premiership club but could not work in another premier league system such as Robbie Keane who was prolific for Spurs but could not cut it for Liverpool. With Robbie Keane many argued he was not given a chance but the reality is even when he was given those chances after Liverpool he was not good enough which is why he is now a of Major league Soccer star over in USA.
Another sad point is after sadly seeing Carroll struggle to control a football, no manager would then go ahead and try to fashion a team simply to make an average footballer look good.
This experiment has already cost us in excess of £50mln over the summer with little success. I believe a team should buy players to fit a system rather than to suit a player and have all that disrupted should a player get injured or simply under-perform.
Carroll is supposed to hold up play when up top or create chances which all need a good football brain, awareness and strength. Now with dear old Andy, I expect Liverpool to almost immediately lose possession because Carroll fails to control the ball under no little or no pressure, falls over clumsily and can't fool any ref to give a foul in his favour at all or shows his lack of awareness by continually knocking on headers when clearly no Liverpool player is anywhere close to him.
It is far easier to believe the team is not playing to his strength but to have a team play to your strength, you need to earn that right. It is for this reason I like our set-up when we have Maxi and now we can also call on Bellamy because these players get the best out of Suarez(he has earned the right to have a team built get the best out of him).
Carroll unfortunately has followed in the footsteps of Morientes prolific before and after Liverpool but just could not fit in with the Liverpool team of the given eras. If he goes back to Newcastle or Stoke, I believe he will be effective again and it may very well be better to get a hit while he has a longer contract ask for £20mln+ and then add £10-£15mln and go for the likes of Higuain, Hulk, Cavani, Lavezzi, Llorente and maybe Mario Gomez if Bayern are still willing to sell.
It is a bit frustrating to hear people continually say @ 22 he is still young and also give that very same excuse to 16year old Raheem Sterling our own Nathan Dyer type of player.
As regards Carroll when do people judge him to be old enough? the argument put forward that Carroll cost Torres less money less £15mln sounds a bit like clutching at straws because the player in question has not performed.
Why are we not hearing Suarez is a bargain because he cost Babel money plus £17mln.
toon fan here - we dont want him back - we are playing much better football without him. you got done.
ReplyDeleteNo way mate! For all the complaints about Carroll giving the ball away, he looks like Lassana Diarra next to Torres. All out attacking moves often end with the ball robbed off Torres' feet. Carroll is similar to Torres in that he is at his most dangerous running with the ball, but Torres needs even more space to run past defenders, Carroll only has to run at defenders. However, the way we currently play does not utilise this strength of Carroll's. Easy to see why Gerrard speaks up for him, because Gerrard will put him through the same way he did for Torres. It would be pointless signing Higuain or someone similar. Who we need is someone who can be a nuisance around the box like Carroll but has a better understanding of passing based attacks - Cavani or Soldado would be perfect, but I am suspecting Kenny would rather Steven Fletcher.
ReplyDeleteGomez's form for Bayern, Carroll's form for Newcastle, Torres' form under Rafa, Morientes in Spain, Mateja Kezman in Holland, Shevchenko for AC Milan, Berbatov with Keane at Spurs, Ibrahimovic in Serie A... Quality and suitability are completely different matters! If Carroll played in a top kick and chase team like Spurs, he'd be world class!
ReplyDeleteTo be fair to these fans, Mario Balotelli is younger than Carroll and doing really well for City. Sturridge is doing well for Chelsea too. We should be playing Carroll how AC Milan is playing Ibra, but we aren't. We play to suit Kuyt, Suarez, Bellamy and Maxi - that's 4 players opposed to 1 Andy Carroll. I too have faith he'll come good, but I believe it will depend on Gerrard, whose game complements Carroll's.
ReplyDeleteCarroll was bought with Aquilani and Meireles still on our books and before Kenny was given a proper contract. Carroll was also bought together with Suarez, who is bringing out the best in Rafa's forwards. If not for the Suarez impact, Aquilani wanting to go home and Gerrard being out so long, it was obvious how to best fit Carroll in - but unforeseeably, he's now a misfit because Kenny has to do the best he can with the squad, whose combined worth is more than 35m.
ReplyDeleteI'd say the same thing to Chelsea fans about Torres! Except 70% of my fellow Reds want him back...
ReplyDelete