It’s a familiar story. Club buys hyped up player, player under-performs for new club, player gets sold, player scores against old club while playing for new club.
It’s a story that Liverpool have experienced a couple of times this season. Jonjo Shelvey scored and got an assist on his first appearance against us after we sold him to Swansea, while Charlie Adam and Peter Crouch both scored against us in our 5-3 win at the Britannia back in January.
I’m writing about this because we travel to West Ham this weekend, who have an abundance of former Liverpool players in their squad: Joe Cole, that “marquee signing” made by Roy Hodgson who frequently struggled to justify his astronomical wages; Stewart Downing, the £20m man who became the butt of every football fans’ jokes as he failed to register a single league goal or assist in his debut season, although he improved in his second season; Andy Carroll, the infamous waste of £35m who rarely played due to injury and was shifted on by Rodgers in his first transfer window.
Joe Cole doesn’t worry me too much – and truth be told, Downing hasn’t exactly been giving me sleepless nights either – but Andy Carroll makes me paranoid. Of course Downing has a point to prove, but Andy Carroll will be on a mission to prove to Liverpool that they were wrong to let him go. For such a high profile record signing to fail so drastically and then be moved on after his first full season, Carroll will feel incredibly hard done by and will do everything in his power to ruin our season, aided by Downing who will undoubtedly be floating the crosses in for him.
We’ve had our fair share of wins at Upton Park over the years, but it hasn’t always been a happy hunting ground for us. I still remember the year that Scott Parker scored the winner against us a few years ago when West Ham pulled off a shock win against us. It would be typical if Andy Carroll was the man to dent our title hopes as we come closest to winning in decades.
Brendan Rodgers and his team have proved adept at overcoming multiple challenges in 2014, each differing in difficulty and situation. In order to avoid the ghost of transfers past and win on Sunday, they must beat West Ham. Andy Carroll must not become another Jonjo Shelvey.
fair comment, no issues there except to say Shelvey produced the complete performance for us last saturday against Norwich, quite brilliant and the kid is still only just turned 22. he plays very similar to gerrard which is maybe why brendan let him go but trust me he is the real deal. What annoys me is the media machine, aided and abetted by allardyce, is now pushing for carroll to go to world cup, is this a sick joke or not. yes he heads a ball very well so the good teams make sure he never has a free header and thats it game over for andy carroll because there is nothing else to his game.
Our man Bony cost an awful lot less and is a far far superior footballer, your man suarez is simply on another planet. worst footballing side in the premiership west ham hope you stuff them on the weekend, and many many thanks to the scousers who gave me a great weekend a couple of weeks ago when we played everton.
all the best
swansea jack
It was a shame we had to let Shelvey go really, but he was never gonna get enough opportunities to develop with us so he had to go for his own sake. I’m glad he’s doing wel, just infuriating when he turns it on against us to show us what we missed out on haha.
I hope we stuff West Ham too! A loss for Chelsea and City too wouldn’t go amiss either 😉
Andy Carrol makes himself paranoid! 35m down the toilet but we still have Luis Suarez to compensate..
i remembered when he scored twice against us,with our porous defence i wouldnt bet against him scoring
now we see a real battle… sometime liverpool are very struggle with bottom team..
make sure we collect more win before we meet city and chelsea..
SAS ( Super Attacking System ) will play at diamondheart..
352 are good for battle with west ham but must see this man.. Mark noble, james tomkins,matt jarvis,james collins..
Br drop Agger 4 Sakho in this game cos Agger seems to struggle against huge center FW and start Sterling to combat the effectiveness of Downing.ynwa
I am in NO WAY , worried about Carrol, he was hopeless for lfc and this term has scored only a handfull of goals , yes hes been out injured but he brings nothing to the team, Hes Big aso the only thing he does is be a target man, When hes on the ball he cant control well. Very seldome does he get his shot off, When he does its scuffed or skied!. My bigest worry is Diame, hes big and strong and very oftens finds the loose ball.
Im sure we will get over the line , hoepefully we will embaress them and a DS hatrick would do just well