If Andy Carroll isn’t careful he will have achieved the seemingly impossible on Tyneside – made Mike Ashley look good and the decision to sell him to Liverpool for £35m a masterstroke.
There were those who, even if Carroll went on to play 100 games for England and led the Liverpool line with distinction for the best part of a decade, would have argued the money was too good to turn down.
At least they would if Newcastle had actually spent any of it on incoming transfers this summer rather than grabbed it to balance the books.
Others, the more romantic souls, who were thrilled to see a Geordie in the club’s iconic number nine shirt again, will never accept it. Well they might, if as is rumoured, Newcastle have a buy back option should Liverpool decide to part with him and Carroll returns to St James’ Park for less than they sold him for, but I’m getting off track here.
At the moment, even though Newcastle have ridiculously failed to sign a replacement for Carroll this summer despite sitting on a great big wad of cash, it is the selling club who have come off best in the deal.
The stark, brutal stats of his time at Liverpool, are this. Carroll has played 13 games for Liverpool and scored just three goals, one of which came against Exeter City in the Carling Cup. The other two in a solitary game against Manchester City.
To put the Carroll transfer into some sort of context he is the most expensive British footballer and joint 13th in the all-time world list.
Yet, this is a player who moved to Anfield after just six successful months in the Premier League. A year earlier, the young striker had not even been guaranteed a start in Newcastle’s Championship-winning promotion side.
Liverpool paid a huge price for potential, but potential isn’t always realised, particularly if the person in possession doesn’t fully appreciate what needs to be done to unlock it.
Early days of course. Carroll hasn’t even been at Anfield a year and has spent a lot of that time recovering from a niggling knee injury.
There is still plenty of time for the 22-year-old to come good and rediscover the rampaging, uncontainable old fashioned centre-forward quality he appeared to have in black and white stripes. But, for the first time in his young career, Carroll is under pressure and we don’t know if he can cope.
He is being questioned and criticised, something he never had to contend with on Tyneside. For £35m, Liverpool don’t want potential, they want performances and goals, or at least a suggestion they are on the horizon.
As a local lad, fresh faced out of the Academy, Carroll’s failings were ignored at Newcastle, his bad behaviour forgiven and his liking for a night out just part of his charm in a city where everyone, young and old, enjoys doing the same.
At Newcastle, Carroll could do no wrong. He was encouraged and supported, even when he first broke into the first team and was so raw he looked blue.
Carroll thrived in that environment as an unknown quantity and was more accustomed to having smoke blown where the sun doesn’t shine rather than kicked around the same area.
The move to Liverpool looked a good one. He would learn from an old master like Kenny Dalglish and would develop at a club which could curb his wild streak and turn him into a finely-tuned athlete.
It has not quite worked out that way. Carroll regularly returns to Newcastle to enjoy his home town and he does not appear to have curbed anything.
Dalglish is sensibly trying to protect his player and has never criticised Carroll in public, but England manager Fabio Capello will be gone in a year’s time and has no interest in the long game or the hope Carroll matures with age.
He wants performances from Carroll now and he isn’t delivering them, hence his presence in the stands, not the squad, when England beat Bulgaria last week. Carroll has looked heavy and slow so far this season and there are suggestions he has put on weight since he left Newcastle.
No wonder Capello is worried about his lifestyle. The English drinking culture is alien to the Italian, but he has a valid point where Carroll is concerned.
There was another player like Carroll who once took the Premier League by storm. He was unplayable on his day, a devastating target man defenders were terrified of. His name was Duncan Ferguson.
Ferguson was a nearly player, someone who had 10 excellent games a season when he was fully fit and firing. As he got older and his lifestyle caught up with him, his body began to protest and he spent most of his time at Everton and Newcastle injured or recovering from them.
He was a brilliant player, but he never did it enough to be considered a great. Carroll could find he is following in his footsteps.
Does anyone remember Michael Ricketts? He scored 24 goals for Bolton Wanderers as they won promotion to the Premier League and had scored another 15 by February in his first season in the top flight.
It was form that rightly earned him an England cap against Holland in 2001. His career has been in free fall ever since, taking in the delights of Middlesbrough, Leeds United, Stoke, Cardiff, Burnley, Southend, Preston, Oldham, Walsall and finally Tranmere, who released him at the end of last season.
Carroll is a far better prospect than Ricketts, but his rapid decline is a timely reminder of what can happen to one season wonders in the Premier League.
Carroll could be a magnificent centre-forward for club and country. He could be the player Newcastle supporters always dreamed he would be for them, but at the moment he is danger of becoming the most expensive transfer flop of all time. Capello’s warning must not be ignored.
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