17 months is a long time in football, just ask Andy Carroll.
The giant Geordie has found it difficult adapting to life as the record signing of Britain’s most decorated football club, and in all honesty prior to the last month of this far from impressive season the odds on Carroll wearing the number 9 shirt post the summer transfer window were extremely slim.
Despite the big, broad shoulders of the Liverpool front man the £35 million resting on them has at times looked more like a £100 million as a combination of fitness, poor form and the obsession of the British tabloids combined to take a considerable toll.
Since his arrival from Tyne-side last year Carroll has been a shadow of the player who burst onto the Premier League scene with the then Premier League new boys Newcastle United and has at times looked a man drained of every ounce of self belief. 30 goals in 60 games had every Premier League manager licking their lips at the prospect of securing a man with all the potential to become England’s future number 9, and at the tender age of 21.
Perhaps it was the manner of Carroll’s departure from Newcastle that has been behind the constant question marks over his desire to wear the famous red shirt donned by messes Rush Fowler and Torres.
It’s fair to say that Carroll didn’t exactly do himself any favours with his choice of language whilst becoming the most expensive British footballer ever. Whispers of him being forced out of Newcastle and the apparent lack of choice over the move to Anfield were gradually becoming louder and louder before the ink on the 5 year contract barely had time to dry….hardly the best preparation for joining one of the world’s most famous football clubs.
The huge price-tag that Liverpool paid for Carroll certainly didn’t help the lad, let’s be honest the whole footballing world knows that if Liverpool hadn’t acquired £50 million worth of Russian oil money from Chelski’s super rich owner Roman Abromavich then the transfer fee wouldn’t have even been half that amount. Cries of “what a waste of money” were being heard before Carroll had even had chance to pull on the famous number 9 shirt.
Reports of homesickness and choice of lifestyle were already rife when the now departed England Coach Fabio Capello chose to heap more pressure on Carroll by publicly criticising his alleged drinking problems. Predictably the press had a field day and another nail was hammered into Carroll’s Anfield coffin.
Yet more unwanted headlines were to follow as team mates Pepe Reina and Dirk Kuyt naively named the reds number 9 as the clubs worst trainer in Sky’s Soccer am team-mates.
Despite all of that Carroll appeared to be destined for greatness when he scored his first 2 goals for Liverpool at Anfield in a 3-0 win at Manchester City in April of 2011.You could feel the buzz around the stadium that night and the fans marching away from the pavements of Anfield road were left drooling at the prospect of Carroll forging a formidable strike partnership with Luis Suarez.
In truth that has never really looked like happening, in fact the Carroll and Suarez partnership has rarely had chance to breathe into life. The pair have started only 12 out of 53 competitive games together this season, a fact that really does tell a story of a season filled with frustration and disappointment. Throw Steven Gerrard into the mix and the picture becomes even more telling. A statistic of only 6 games together as a trio is without doubt the biggest reason behind Liverpool’s stuttering season.
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Carroll is certainly not solely to blame for his stop start Anfield career so far. It has been a puzzling side story of Liverpool’s season, it seems like whenever he has scored the goal that could kick-start his and Liverpool’s season he has usually found himself warming the bench the very next week.
The team itself has certainly taken its time to play to the big man’s strengths. Downing, Adam, Henderson and co. were bought to supply the ammunition for Carroll to score the goals that would fire the reds into the Champions League, but this simply hasn’t been the case.
Andy would be the first to admit that his form and work-rate this season has not been at the level required to succeed at the very top, and this has been the one controllable for him in a catalogue of components that have restricted him to just 11 senior goals since his arrival at Anfield.
Desire, work-rate and a fighting spirit for the shirt are all non-negotiable prerequisites at Liverpool football club and anything that falls short of that is not tolerated by the Anfield faithful. It’s fair to say that at times this season Andy’s performances have fell below those standards and if his Liverpool career is to remembered for the right reasons then the performance levels he has reached over the last month or so will need to be replicated week in week out.
Alongside all the issues already mentioned perhaps the biggest barrier for Carroll has been his relationship and perception of the British press. It’s not too strong to say that Andy has been slaughtered by the tabloids from day 1. The same journalists describing him as England’s number 9 for years to come and Newcastle’s natural replacement for Alan Shearer have since portrayed him as a laughing stock and ridiculed him at every opportunity.
No matter what you say about Andy Carroll one thing that he can never be questioned for is the thickness of his skin. To have experienced the lows, lows and more lows of Liverpool FC life so far and to still be around to continue the fight tells you a lot about the character of the man. The experiences of the last 17 months have given Carroll resilience to be able to deal with anything that is thrown at him for the rest of his footballing days.
However dark the tunnel, there has been a notable flash or two of light beginning to open up over the last few weeks of the season. Fantastic goals and performances against Blackburn and against Everton in the FA cup semi-final were joined by an electrifying cameo from the bench in the Wembley defeat against Chelsea. It was less than a week later that the flash of light became 10 times brighter when quite possibly Carroll’s finest display in a red shirt at Anfield against Chelsea had players and press alike calling for Liverpool’s record signing to be called into Roy Hodgson’s Euro 2012 squad.
With King Kenny relieved of his first team duties this summer, the handling or mishandling depending on your view of Liverpool’s number 9 will be forever known as Dalglish’s Achilles heel in his second spell as manager of Liverpool FC. It seems like Liverpool’s record signing is finally finding the formula for success at Anfield and although the road is long ahead the last month or so have finally given Liverpool fans the belief that the big man has what takes to be a hit at Anfield.
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