Charlie Adam looks set to join Stoke City, Jay Spearing is off to Bolton on a six month loan deal. We’ve said goodbye to several club flops and fringe players. Some great talents have come the opposite direction, too (Joe Allen, Sahin – I’m looking at you). However, there is one player we’ve said goodbye to this window that really irks me, and surely other Liverpool fans too. Andy Carroll.
Andy Carroll left last night, London-bound for a season long loan at West Ham. The loan deal is probably best for the big man. He clearly wasn’t going to get a chance to play at Liverpool this season, which is a shame.
After the Newcastle game last season, when he was booed and jeered by his old fans, something changed inside him. You could see he was itching to score goals, and he was making a real nuisance of himself around defenders.
He was a game changer when he came on against Chelsea in the FA Cup final when we had clearly run out of ideas (even though we didn’t really start with any), and he scored an important goal for us against Everton in the semi-final of that competition.
We got to see those talents again at the Euros in Poland and Ukraine. Big Andy scored a very important goal there too and that’s where his talent lies. He’s a fantastic impact sub. A guy who can come on in the latter stages of the game – not the 85th minute, there has to be realistic time – and get in the way of tired defences, making work for them and putting himself in to dangerous positions.
Sadly though, Brendan Rodgers is right. Liverpool FC aren’t in a position to have £35,000,000 impact subs on £80k a week. It’s just not feasible, as irritating and disheartening as it is for fans of Andy Carroll, and for the man himself. Money needs to be saved and true goal scorers are desperately required.
Hopefully over the next 12 hours the club will announce the signing of one or two more players; proven goal scorers that can work a goal (from open play would be nice) that can rack up our for tally and get us climbing the table with the rest, where we belong. We’ve been linked with Daniel Sturridge and obviously Clint Dempsey. Hopefully the boss will wangle both in some deals. All we can do is be patient and wait.
LFC may be without Andy Carroll this Sunday when they face Arsenal but this isn’t a bad thing. Arsenal still haven’t scored this season, and you’d like to think that they will find it even harder to do so against one of the best goalkeepers in the league. All that Liverpool need to do is find someone who can, regularly. We’ll know tonight whether that’s possible. YNWA.
Follow Sam on Twitter for occasional footballing insights - @srbellis