Give The Big Man Time

AS a massive football fan, and of the opinion I have a good general knowledge of tactics and players, I’m a regular playing football manager, when I do this I think I prefer the old school variety of strikers, by that I mean the classic ‘little and large’. In modern terms this has worked quite well where you’ve seen partnerships such as Heskey and Owen, Crouch and Owen, Crouch and Defoe all seemingly working in the past for their former clubs.

When Liverpool signed Andy Carroll and Luis Suarez, I won’t lie, my mouth was watering at the prospect of linking up what I believe to be the best striking philosophy. I’m sure many people will agree that this season my mouth has run a little dry over what we’ve seen down at Anfield. With Suarez being generally a hit on the pitch it seems relatively easy to point the blame in Carroll’s direction – after all he’s easy to spot from a distance – but I think that this has been a bit unfair on the tall striker.

When Liverpool bought him for £35million it was always seen as a risk as the general consensus was that he had a good season in the Championship for Newcastle and a good first half of the season in the Premier League but was relatively unproven at that level – an argument which I can’t disagree with. Add to this another risk of him being relatively young, is a £35million price tag going to add extra pressure to him on top of him playing for a club with a history as rich as Liverpool FC’s?

It would be easy to say that for the amount he gets paid that I personally wouldn’t let the pressure of a price tag get to me, but when you delve a little bit deeper you’ll realise the pressure actually comes from us, the fans, for him to perform and instantly start repaying the huge transfer fee which we’ve spent on him. Comments from fans of “for £35m I would have scored that”, and a group moan whenever he has a bad touch or a misplaced shot is surely going to knock a young man’s confidence. Added with Capello’s comments about his general well being and alleged party lifestyle it’s no wonder he took his time to start performing on the pitch.

A few games I watched I was generally pleased with his overall play. Sure he was slow, didn’t get back enough and his work rate was lower than the rest of the team’s, but that’s what you expect from a lone striker, as long as he performs in the box. However, mainly in Gerrard’s absence through injury, he was not being given the ammunition to start making himself a hero to the Anfield faithful. At the end of the season I saw a slight change in philosophy from both the manager and the players, using him for the ‘big lump’ that he is, he terrorised defences and started to look every bit the number 9 we’d all grow to love.
[ad_pod id=”unruly-video” align=”center”]
I even saw a few fancy touches from him – ‘megging John Terry being a personal highlight – and his work rate, pace and overall threat seemed to shoot up as he looked double the player that he did at the start of the campaign. Surely though he can’t have just shifted his confidence and started playing this way? Maybe he just wanted to prove a point?

The bigger picture still remains that £35million was an investment for the player that he eventually will become, and I do believe that he will achieve it with a bit of guidance and to quote that old song “a little bit of help from his friends” on the football pitch. Alone, Carroll is a waste of £35million as he can’t just run defences ragged and create goals out of nothing, like Suarez, but as part of a team where everyone plays their part, he can become a major force in helping Liverpool achieve their overall goal.

I thank Kenny Dalglish for bringing him out of his shell and getting him to start playing football the way that I would like to see from a striker with his attributes, and the next manager should take this into consideration when they start to look at getting the best out of the team. Personally I think come next season he will prove to be a hit rather than a miss, and he’ll start to look every inch the player we’d expect for a British transfer record.

As fan’s, I think we should all remember that at his age, he’s got plenty of time to repay us, and for people who say we should cut our losses and get rid of him now, look at the bigger picture and remember that he’s young and his talent is starting to show through now. Maybe the whole squad needs to get together and help him out as not everyone can be an instant success – some people just need a bit of time.

Live4Liverpool is recruiting columnists. For further info contact the site editor at live4liverpool@snack-media.com

Follow us on Twitter here: @live4Liverpool and ‘Like’ us on Facebook