England and Spurs legend Jimmy Greaves has questioned Liverpool's decision to spend such a vast amount of money on misfiring striker Andy Carroll.
In his weekly column for The Sunday People, Greaves - who scored a fantastic 220 goals in 321 games for Spurs - argued:
"If Fernando Torres was vastly over-priced, then what about the fella Liverpool drafted in on the same day, Andy Carroll?
"Liverpool would never have spent £35m on the big target man if they had not just received £50m for Torres, so to do so was the economics of idiocy.
"It was as if the money had simply burnt a hole in their pockets.
"Carroll is a good old-fashioned centre-forward, without the good old-fashioned goals tally, and he doesn’t seem to fit in to Liverpool’s style of play".
Greaves went on to compare Carroll to another underwhelming Liverpool striker of the distant past:
"I can remember another big centre-forward, Tony Hateley, having a similarly frustrating move to Anfield in the ’60s. He scored a few goals but simply didn’t fit in there"
Jaimie Kanwar
In his weekly column for The Sunday People, Greaves - who scored a fantastic 220 goals in 321 games for Spurs - argued:
"If Fernando Torres was vastly over-priced, then what about the fella Liverpool drafted in on the same day, Andy Carroll?
"Liverpool would never have spent £35m on the big target man if they had not just received £50m for Torres, so to do so was the economics of idiocy.
"It was as if the money had simply burnt a hole in their pockets.
"Carroll is a good old-fashioned centre-forward, without the good old-fashioned goals tally, and he doesn’t seem to fit in to Liverpool’s style of play".
Greaves went on to compare Carroll to another underwhelming Liverpool striker of the distant past:
"I can remember another big centre-forward, Tony Hateley, having a similarly frustrating move to Anfield in the ’60s. He scored a few goals but simply didn’t fit in there"
Jaimie Kanwar
Jaime - square-peg, round hole. End of. Can we discuss something more meaningful? We wasted 35 million. Can't turn back the clock unfortunately. Carroll would be ideal for Sunderland: Martin O'Neill has always loved a big target man. And Laarson is one of the best crossers in the EPL. Doubt it would ever happen as he is a Geordie. Short of that, he needs to be played as an impact sub. Maxi is a natural compliment to Suarez. Great positional sense and a good passer he should start most games.
ReplyDeleteNonsense. He will come good, tall players take longer to peak and he's what 22? Check his record against some other big players like him. Patience.
ReplyDeleteWell said Greaves but Liverpool could still develop him into a top flight striker but at the moment most of the fans are impatient.
ReplyDeleteNot saying he won't come good but sincerely believe he is the wrong fit for Liverpool. If we wanted to accommodate him we'd have to build our whole type of play and team around him.
ReplyDeleteFrom a drunken racist like Greaves who couldn't get in the England 66 starting team ...is like Mark Wright calling for Carragher back in the defence when we are defending so well....wait a minute !....
ReplyDeleteWe will however need tonnes of patience, because he has to learn the Liverpool way, which is not his natural style. Carroll was built for kick and chase football and without a doubt, he would flourish at Spurs, Sunderland, Stoke and most certainly for Newcastle. In terms of how dangerous he would be for teams playing that kind of football, he is worth 35m just to deprive them.
ReplyDeleteHowever, because he is still young, we do not need to build our play around him, but he can learn to use his attributes to supplement the team. It doesn't matter that he hasn't got the best footballing brain around either, because Kenny does and would be the second best person to get the best out of Carroll. Of course, it would be even better still if we could hire Shearer as his personal mentor. Carroll is a Geordie true and through and would regard anything Shearer says as divine - much in the way Bellamy probably views Kenny.
Besides Suarez, it seems like our veterans are the ones benefitting most from Dalglish at the helm and they would certainly seem like better choices for our starting 11, but that's probably because of the level of difficulty of the project Kenny has embarked on. Every player is expected to perform in at least 2 different positions, our forwards, no less than 3. Anyone who has performed out of position when required will definitely be able to adapt, but players not used to it will definitely struggle, and Carroll is one of them.
A large part of why we're creating the opportunities and not finishing them is down to the know how and movement of our players, but the lack of togetherness to be in the exact right spots to capitalise on the chances. Our players are always marginally out of place. Our misses are largely marginal, especially the crossbar shots. I am speculating this has alot to do with players multi-tasking. Chicharito, Van Persie, Demba Ba and Sergio Aguerro do not multi-task and focus primarily on getting goals. We know that Bellamy, Suarez and Kuyt do alot more.
With regards to Andy Carroll, he is at his most dangerous running at or running through defenders. This requires him to have a decent amount of space between them and himself, because he doesn't accelerate well. You could say the way we play does not give him the space to do this, but it could also be up to him to create that space. When he is back far enough to have that space, then he would have to participate in the play in some other way and we have seen him doing that. He is making a massive effort, but his movement in the midfield is terrible and he hardly gets a clear path to run into, which explains the clumsy looking movement. It is very apparent he is working on that part of his game, to make his presence count. However, once the ball moves up one flank, he should immediately anticipate where space will open up and be prepared to charge through. He is clearly not doing that yet. He will also need either Adam, Gerrard or Shelvey behind or alongside him and Henderson, a wide forward or a fullback significantly ahead of him. With our other players moving fluidly, it could be a little too much for him to register on the pitch but this is what must become instinctive to him if he is to improve for us. Currently, his best strike partners on our books would be Gerrard, Shelvey and Henderson, who are all midfielders, like Barton and Nolan were. If they bomb forward, he should look for one-twos with them and they will play him in with a pass that favours him.
Andy will never make the cut at Anfield.The transfer fee was not his doing but none the less he has pocketed his cut of it which was substantial and simply hasnt delivered. Only the Manager's vanity keeps him in the first XI
ReplyDeletethis is the super idiot dalglish who bought this idiot player! blame on the idiot manager KD!
ReplyDeletenonsense! he is a bad player with a bad manager who bought him!
ReplyDeletePlease do not hurl personal insults at KD or the players. Further instances will be deleted.
ReplyDeleteWatched Demba Ba on last weekend against norwich. He scored two goals from nowhere with little support in the box.
ReplyDeleteCarroll could have been like him with his height and strength. But the guy is so demotivated that he does not even take a run at crucial moments. Even when he gets the ball to his feet, he shows no urgency to make the most of out of the chance and bottles it with number of slow touches. Like defenders are going to wait for him during that time. Forget about controlling the awkward crosses, he can't even put away straight forward ones.I am also disappointed with Carroll's movement when he does not have the ball. He doesn't try to loose his marker with the movement. And he is never in the key position to make the most of our chance. Maxi can teach him a lesson there.
of all the people we could lured away for that money kenny opted for this pile of shit
ReplyDelete