Andy Carroll - Best Striker in the World

[Vermilion]

Ah just seen Phoenix's post Negredo was the other player

Either him or Llorente would have been good buys, but they werent available

Oh well

Negredo would have been great imo.

[Lecter]

An injured player as well. Why, why, why.

Because (IMO) the money had to be spent in January

Firstly it would probably have been subject to taxation when we reached our year end, secondly I dont believe we could have carried it over into a FFPR accounting period

[kris90210]

Because (IMO) the money had to be spent in January

Firstly it would probably have been subject to taxation when we reached our year end, secondly I dont believe we could have carried it over into a FFPR accounting period

You make it sound as though we literally had no choice to do anything other than spend 35 million pounds on Andy Carroll

[Lecter]

You make it sound as though we literally had no choice to do anything other than spend 35 million pounds on Andy Carroll

No I'm not saying that

I'm saying we had limited options

The money had to be spent in January (imo)

We explored a number of options which werent possible and opted for one of those options that became possible

I dont believe carrying the money forward till the summer was EVER an option we had

[Kenneth]

Because (IMO) the money had to be spent in January

Firstly it would probably have been subject to taxation when we reached our year end, secondly I dont believe we could have carried it over into a FFPR accounting period

Interesting idea. Has our accounting period changed because our year end was end of July in 2010? Seems pretty key to the argument.

[Rich]

The reason I don't want to give up on Carroll, although I also realise it might be past the point of no return, is that he was much, much better at Newcastle. Unplayable at times.

If we could just get him to reproduce that form then we'd have IMO a cracking player on our hands.

[Lecter]

Interesting idea. Has our accounting period changed because our year end was end of July in 2010?

Accounting period hasnt changed but the FFPR accounting period started in the transfer window of the summer 2011

As soon as that window opened we were subject to FFPR

My belief is that we wouldnt be able to carry forward the Torres fee and therefore that whole fee would then become subject to tax implications

Tax on £50 million is far greater than tax on £15 million

Still spending £35 million on Carroll or paying tax on £50 million still amounts to be money down the drain BUT if you read Kennys book he says the club often bought players to avoid paying higher taxation

[Zapater]

See how easy the likes of Atletico Madrid make it look. Torres leaves, they replace him with Sergio Aguero. Not rocket science. Aguero leaves, they replace him with the absolutely **** hot Falcao.

I honestly think the whole scouting thing has been over-complicated with all this Moneyball crap. The stats implied Downing was good. Anyone who's watched him his whole career knows he's not.

Just about everyone in the world knows who the best/better players in the bigger leagues are. Suddenly running some statistical analysis that favours Downing doesn't suddenly make him a great player. I've said it for years, football is played on grass, not on paper as much as people (me included) like to work things out statistically or in terms of what should make sense, there's nothing to guarantee that's how things will play out on the field.

I.e. If we had signed Santi Cazorla and he flopped, I'd have said '**** it, he's a quality player and it just didn't work out' because to be frank, there's no doubting his quality and potential ability. Also with that kind of signing if it doesn't work, you'll usually get a few isolated performances which will showcase their talents which could earn points despite being largely disappointing. Whereas signing Downing who we've all seen being painfully average for ****ty clubs for the better part of the last decade and expecting magic is horribly flawed logic. Not to mention the lack of ambition.

There was no-where near this reaction when we bought AC, the price was high fair enough, but all these people now coming out saying he's just a **** footballer, where were they when we bought him ?

No way is he as bad as people say, Just like Morientes, time served TOP striker! couldn't hit a barn door for us.

Hold on, you're seriously comparing Morientes to Carroll? ****ing hell. There is no doubting Morientes, he was one of the best players at one of the best clubs this century. He had competition from the best players in the world and proved his quality. He came as a 3 time CL winner. An established international, proven in Spain and France. It just didn't work out, he didn't fit with our other players either, and it's also worth noting he didn't play his natural position for a lot of the time as well. How you can compare that to a kid who scored some goals in the Championship and 11 goals in half a season in the Premiership is just madness. Morientes even proved his quality after he left by scoring goals at Valencia.

Also, with Moro, you could see he was a good player playing badly where as with Carroll, he looks like a below average player performing badly. When you consider their first touch, movement, game intelligence etc it's not worth comparing.

Splashing silly money on an unproven player who me and a number of others doubted fitting into our style/system was a terrible gamble. And before someone comes in with a "price doesn't matter" and I'm only "having a go because he was so expensive" - well when I see him, I no longer think of the money or the alternatives we could've gotten with the same kind of money, I just think; ****... this is the only option we have, and he's clearly not cutting the mustard and it doesn't look like he will do so in the near future. That's what I'm most concerned about.

[Kenneth]

[red g]

The reason I don't want to give up on Carroll, although I also realise it might be past the point of no return, is that he was much, much better at Newcastle. Unplayable at times.

If we could just get him to reproduce that form then we'd have IMO a cracking player on our hands.

Marcus stewart managed to be the english league top scorer a few years ago

Kevin Lisbie scored a hat trick agianst us.

every dog has its day/purple patch.

Andy Carroll was unplayable against Arsenal and he tore them a new arsehole, Well many forwards do that to arsenals defence.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4AQ7XO7C68"]Andy Carroll's Premier League Goals for Newcastle United 2010/11 - YouTube[/ame]

**** quality but i have just watched all that and put up with the ****e music to look for a glimmer of hope and you know what even in the goals there is 1 brilliant header, that superb strike against us but nothing that suggests to me he is unplayable......

Actually i think he is unplayable but not the way you are thinking

[Maxiedge]

Also, taking into account his lifestyle in Newcastle, the fact that he was on a battery charge, his car was recently torched by a gangster and was hence hiding out at Kevin Nolan's, .... shouldn't we have paid less than what he was worth? I mean, that's not exactly a glowing reference

[Mattshark]

With all due respect there is a difference between it being "part of the transfer strategy" and it being the "biggest factor"

Moneyball and sabermetrics are clearly the method that they use to target players

Yes there was a preference for British / British based players then used to further narrow selection but in no way was that the guiding principle behind our transfer policy

That is moneyball/sabermetrics

If it was then someone needs to be less 1 dimensional in looking at stats. I find it hard to believe personally.

[The Birdman]

Because (IMO) the money had to be spent in January

Firstly it would probably have been subject to taxation when we reached our year end, secondly I dont believe we could have carried it over into a FFPR accounting period

I also think we had to reinvest as a statement of intent, we had a couple of years of H&G bleeding us dry, new american owners, some fans sceptical, some reassuring words from JW Henry then they have £50m to spend as Torres hands in a written transfer request.

After everything the club went through with H&G there would have been out right anarchy if FSG (as were) didn't spend that money somewhere.
Buying Carroll actually contributed to our form in the 2nd half of the season imo because fans and the media all saw Kenny back, Liverpool willing to spend money, all of a sudden we were being taken seriously again, the atmosphere changed around Anfield and the club.

Now I firmly believe Carroll is doing a lot better than people give him credit for, most slagging him off on here don't even play for their Sunday morning pub side yet freely join in with the abuse of him.
Will he ever do enough and get his confidence back? who knows but buying him when we did was about a lot more than just signing a centre forward.

[Daniel 7]

http://www.est1892.co.uk/forums/show...&postcount=265

Oh my, some say I never gave him a chance. I did for a while and never mentioned him. Gut instincts though...

http://www.est1892.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=1869321&postcount=2016

[Kenneth]

I also think we had to reinvest as a statement of intent, we had a couple of years of H&G bleeding us dry, new american owners, some fans sceptical, some reassuring words from JW Henry then they have £50m to spend as Torres hands in a written transfer request.

After everything the club went through with H&G there would have been out right anarchy if FSG (as were) didn't spend that money somewhere.
Buying Carroll actually contributed to our form in the 2nd half of the season imo because fans and the media all saw Kenny back, Liverpool willing to spend money, all of a sudden we were being taken seriously again, the atmosphere changed around Anfield and the club.

Now I firmly believe Carroll is doing a lot better than people give him credit for, most slagging him off on here don't even play for their Sunday morning pub side yet freely join in with the abuse of him.
Will he ever do enough and get his confidence back? who knows but buying him when we did was about a lot more than just signing a centre forward.

Absolutely nobody is saying they are unhappy about us spending a lot of money. It's spending it on Andy Carroll that was the problem.