Liverpool wasted £35 million on the former Newcastle man. It has often been justified as an important acquisition because they needed to replace Torres’ goals. But they haven’t even done that.
It was a strange one at the time – the kind of money you’d expect to pay for a world class player. Perhaps a figure Man Utd might spend on a world class midfielder to perfect their team. It is not the kind of money you spend on an average, if promising, striker who has had half a good season in the Premier League.
Yet Liverpool did just that and now they are regretting it. They have a habit of signing over rated English and Irish players. For Carroll, he merely follows in the Heskey/Keane lineage. Stewart Downing is another who will go down in the Anfield outfit’s annals of grossly misjudged transfer dealings.
Liverpool have so much potential, too. Imagine if they had instead had the foresight to sign the next Javier Hernandez, Eric Torres, for a tenth of what they spent on Carroll. Or if they’d have bought Olivier Giroud and Leandro Damiao for half of the cost of the burly Englishman. Or Edinson Cavani. The list of better, cheaper forwards they could have signed is endless. Papiss Cisse. Demba Ba. Kevin Gameiro. Seydou Doumbia. Loic Remy. Moussa Sow. Bafa Gomis. Fernando Llorente. Roberto Soldado.
But no, they went for Carroll. Kenny Dalglish must look himself in the mirror and question his judgment when he managed to either ignore, or dismiss all of the above in favour of Carroll.
Carroll may yet prove a decent player. But in a certain system, and not yet .He is big strong and though technically proficient, seems to thrive best in a team which play with width. Liverpool are the last team you’d join if you thrive on width. A side who have one wide player, Stewart Downing, whom they play on his weaker side, thus causing him to cut infield, is not who Carroll should have joined. But he did.
Now both player and club have a dilemma. How do you make such a patently unsuitable match work? It seems impossible to conceive of how this will be done, but done it must be. Or Liverpool must be prepared to take a huge hit on the player they brought in. Selling him on for half of his value may be the most they can get for him now. At least then they can maybe do the sensible thing, and sign someone who is value for money – a most un-Liverpool like way of looking at things.
