AS Liverpool played the second leg of their Europa League tie with Hearts, the club confirmed that Andy Carroll had joined West Ham on a season-long loan. There had been speculation about Carroll’s future at Anfield since Brendan Rodgers was appointed manager and the writing was on the wall for the 23-year-old when Rodgers said that Liverpool were not in a position “to have £35m players as third-choice strikers“. There is no commitment for West Ham to buy Carroll at the end of his loan deal, which makes me wonder if there is any chance the big man could still have a future at Liverpool.
For Carroll, the West Ham loan makes a lot of sense. Rodgers had made it clear that Carroll would have to settle for a limited role at Anfield, whereas under Sam Allardyce, he is likely to be playing every week. Carroll will be under considerably less pressure at Upton Park as he will not have to justify his £35m price tag to Hammers fans, and he will be well-suited to West Ham’s style of football.
Loaning Carroll is something of a coup for Allardyce and West Ham, but how much sense does it make from a Liverpool perspective? Not much, in my opinion. If Rodgers did not want Carroll at Anfield, he should have held out for a transfer offer rather than a loan deal. During Liverpool’s North American tour, Rodgers said the idea of loaning Carroll out was “ridiculous” and yet, six weeks later, he has been forced to backtrack on that statement.
There are also a number of Liverpool fans, myself included, who wanted to see Rodgers give Carroll a chance. The former Newcastle player’s popularity with the Anfield faithful was underlined by the reception he got coming on as a substitute against Manchester City and after Carroll scored some vital goals for the club towards the end of last season, his backers had cause for optimism. We hoped the big man had found his form and that he would be a threat for Liverpool this season, but of course, Rodgers had other ideas.
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If nothing else, you have to admire Rodgers for sticking to his footballing principles and refusing to be burdened by the mistakes made by Kenny Dalglish and Damien Comolli. But as another forward wasn’t signed before the transfer window closed, Carroll’s departure leaves Liverpool short of attacking options. As I’ve said before, Carroll offers an alternative when tiki-taka isn’t working and I am concerned that Rodgers will come to regret loaning him to West Ham. For his sake and Liverpool’s, I hope I’m mistaken.
It will be interesting to see how Carroll performs at West Ham, and where he ends up next season. The Hammers have the first option on Carroll and if he performs well for the club, a permanent transfer may be a foregone conclusion. But if Carroll outscores the likes of Fabio Borini and Luis Suarez, Rodgers may be willing to give the big man another chance at Liverpool. Speaking after his loan deal was confirmed, Carroll said it was great to be at West Ham and that he couldn’t wait to get started. But throughout the summer, Carroll made it clear that he wanted to stay at Anfield and fight for his place. The big man has been forced out of the club and while he may get a second chance next season, right now that looks highly unlikely.
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Big mistake by Brendan Rodgers. And he’s been massively cheated by the owners over getting a replacement. FSG out!
The owners late spot on. Got their fingers burned last year. We are suffering the consequences.
Trim the squad down, buy wisely should be the order of the day. Better to refuse paying over the odds than get mugged like we did over Carrol/Adam and co.
Spearing not playing for us is in itself a boost to to team. Why? Because he belongs in league one. Carrol and Adam don’t have what it takes.
I hope Carrol does well enough to get off the books. It’s been excellent, think about it. We have added two top midfielders, a young striker in Borrini, a German youngster and sold most of the crap players.
Big question mark is the failure to sign another striker. Where we’re the alternatives mr Rogers? I hope he learned his lessons for next time.
Also, why is Jo Cole still with us? If he is there because of the Brendan Chelsea connection, we are in trouble .
Remember, where there is a crises, there is opportunity as well. Our youngsters will see this as a golden chance . Morgan , Suso please stend up, sterling also.
You never know, this could be for the best
Keep the faith
Excellent post Erin. My word all these fickle fans! Joe Cole had two offers yesterday and turned them both down. We do have more than Suarez and Borini as forward options. Try Suarez, Borini, Assaidi, Yesil, Morgan, Sterling, Shelvey, Gerrard, Downing, Pacheco and more. To say we are short upfront is a bit off the mark. We had an excellent transfer window but the petulant fickle fans wanted to be part of the final day excitement and when we missed our target they needed someone to vent against. Of course it’s the “yank” owners as usual, regardless of what actually happened.
While I agree it hasn’t been the disaster window that a lot of fans want it to be, naming Shelvey, Gerrard, Downing and Assaidi as forward goal threat options is pathetic desperation in trying to prove your point. And who are the ‘more’!?? Reina and Rodgers?!! Plus, If Suarez and Borini just happened to pick up injuries at the same time, we’ll be deadly up front with the proven Yesil and Pacheco!!!
Cole turned down two offers? Off course he would. Where else is he going to earn that kind of money. I would just put him in the reserves for a long, long time.
And it is exactly why we did well NOT to panic add another cr@p player on silly money that will just turn up for work/contribute nothing. It has gone on for far too long now and had to stop at some point. Every player we went in for, the value suddenly doubled. Now why is that? Because we were mugged time and again last year.
Every time we went for a player, pound coins flashed in the other clubs eyes.
We needed a different approach. Lets first see what we have got in the reserves, we could be surprised. Hopefully lessons have been learned for Brendan as well, curtesy of Clint Dempsey.
1-never trust a player
2-always have a back up plan
3-Know when to walk away from the deal (siggurson springs to mind)
4-Look abroad for talent
Falcao has been mentioned. More interestingly, who are their scouts? Aguero and now Falcao…..
We sold the junk and resisted the temptation to make another “panic buy”. Yes we are short in the scoring department, but at least we’ll have money and time to find the perfect target…for me look nowhere else than Falcoa, the guy is top class and definitely the technically gifted type preferred by our manager…in BR I trust…and for now still in FSG, they are steadying the ship, Liverpool should never be a “desperate” club doing last minute deals, we need players that want to be here and are good enough. Yes, Dempsey would’ve been great, but I can also see the “why not”…
Ur 1st line great, then ur 2nd… As soon as I saw Falcoa I turned off…
Good post, but don’t be dreaming about Falcoa.
Idiot site – idiot posters – its the owners stupid.
Money don’t grow on trees. And the owners saved the club from becoming Rangers FC. We are a massive club but mismanaged. 130 million pounds were released, if spent wisely, we would have challanged for the title. We blew it. Now is time for a different approach
I agree totally!! But FSG themselves blew it. It was their choice to give money to a manager they picked and he hadn’t worked in the profession in years. I still think the squad looks better than it did last season.
Got rid of most of the deadwood, pity Cole has’nt gone though. It was hard to be a Liverpool fan yesterday, thought we had a couple of players to come in, should have got Suarez another strike partner, don’t know what happened there! Can’t see us having the depth to compete for top four now, just hope our senior players don’t see it as lack of ambition and hand in transfer requests.
In my opinion we have had a good transfer window, it could have been better if we could add another attacking player upfront yesterday. But take an objective look, we have gotten rid of players who were below par, while we have retained those with potential (Hendo anyone?) and added to the ranks some fantastic prospects. Assaidi excites me great great deal, lets charge on to get a champions league place and entice Sahin to sign a permanent deal if possible. I have a feeling Samed will turn out to be a steal in future.
A very sensible window with a practical approach, could have been better with Dempsey, but this looks like a new sensible beginning.
I do not think that it is yet the stage to question the owners, really one should not.
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