Andy Carroll - Best Striker in the World

[Vermilion]

New hero: Liverpool fans mob the car carrying Carroll as he arrives at Liverpool's Melwood Training Ground for a medical

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/foo...#ixzz1CezbxZdI

[Baracus]

Carroll could potentially be one of the lads or end up like Ruddock and dicks

[vonk]

anyone know if he can play at the weekend?

[jono]

New hero: Liverpool fans mob the car carrying Carroll as he arrives at Liverpool's Melwood Training Ground for a medical

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/foo...#ixzz1CezbxZdI

Just compare that turnout to the one that turned out for Torres......... massive difference.... viva la reds!

[Chazza]

anyone know if he can play at the weekend?

Still Injured, should start back in training the next week or so, apparently

[Vermilion]

Liverpool take £36m gamble on Andy Carroll, a gifted forward with an explosive temper.
By Rob Stewart 11:22PM GMT 31 Jan 2011

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/liverpool/8294505/Liverpool-take-36m-gamble-on-Andy-Carroll-a-gifted-forward-with-an-explosive-temper.html

Andy Carroll: Liverpool?s £36m gamble


Andy Carroll is clearly a man of intriguing contradictions. The England international is a model professional in his conduct on the pitch and happy to tie his long hair back with an Alice band or sport a ponytail. However, his conduct at the training ground or when he is out and about in Newcastle’s Bigg Market is significantly different.

Target man: Carroll has attracted a huge fee without a full season in the top flight.

Though he is a throwback of a 6ft 3in targetman and is faced with the Premier League's top defenders, Carroll has collected only four bookings this season with performances that have combined brain with brawn, and discipline with determination, to great effect.

A player whose flowing locks make him look more South American than Geordie even has the initials of his young daughter embroidered into the football boots that have carried him into the England squad with a touch that is usually beyond players of his gangly gait.

The trouble is, anger management issues and dubious refuelling habits have given Carroll – who has turned his Angel of the North-type goal celebration into something of a trademark – an uncanny knack of getting into trouble when he is not playing.

His misdemeanours explain that, even though the No 9 was regarded as an heir-apparent at Newcastle, no one could ever be sure whether that was to Alan Shearer or Joey Barton. Last season he attracted headlines for the wrong reasons after an alleged row at Newcastle's training ground with Steven Taylor over a former girlfriend left the defender with a broken jaw and Carroll with a couple of broken fingers.

That Carroll shrugged off the subsequent controversy by scoring the winning goal at Doncaster as Taylor recovered in hospital was typical of Carroll. He then pushed the club he supported since childhood towards promotion from the Championship.

[Kenneth]

left the defender with a broken jaw and Carroll with a couple of broken fingers.

[The Erectile Banana]

We paid almost twice his true worth. Not ideal, but understandable given the circumstances.

Money issues aside I think Carroll has everything necessary to become a really top class striker. I can see him leading our line for years to come.

[Kenneth]

The longer I sit here tonight the more I think this has been one hell of a strange transfer. Out of the blue (there hadn't been loads of prior speculation), massively inflated and jawdropping price, the speed of completion, risk. The price!

During the H&G court case days, loads of people said they wanted attention to be on the football again, then the football became utter ****e. Definitely got to feel positive about all of this when it's only a matter of months since we were discussing the potential ins and outs of administration, and how the points reduction might leave us deep in the relegation zone. Despite the whole Judas II thing, I think we're heading in the right direction again.

[Rudo]

Is there any chance of a Press Conference for Carroll and Suarez tomorrow?

[Drago]

Is there any chance of a Press Conference for Carroll and Suarez tomorrow?

I'm expecting one tbh.

[Rudo]

Carroll, 22, had just ordered 30 “Jagerbombs” – a potent mix of spirit Jagermeister and Red Bull energy drink – for himself and 15 pals.

Next day the £20million striker’s club, Newcastle United, announced that a thigh injury would rule him out of at least three games.

The Geordie – who picked up an injury in United’s match against Spurs on December 28 – was on a six-hour bender until 6.30am on December 30 at Aspers Casino in Newcastle.

As well as FOUR Jagerbombs, 6ft 4in Carroll downed TWO pints of Fosters and around SIX bottles of Peroni.

Witnesses saw him slump down with his head in his hands after the Jagerbombs and one Peroni. Then all of a sudden he perked up, alert, “like a meerkat”.

He stood up on the leg rest of the stool which tipped over. He then smashed against the floor of the bar area and was clutching his leg, shouting out in pain.

But his mates stood around laughing as Carroll lay in agony.

Shortly afterwards his female companion was seen massaging his leg at the roulette table – where he fell off another stool.

Then he limped off to a private function room, where he downed five more Peronis and sang on the karaoke machine before finally leaving alone at 6.30am. The following day, United boss Alan Pardew told journalists about an injury.

Carroll apparently reported his injury after the Spurs game. But it was decided not to make that injury public until it had been properly assessed.

That assessment was done on December 29, before Carroll went to the casino. The club doctor has examined Carroll regularly since then and a source close to the player said the doctor would dispute the injury being made worse. But gambler Simon Cook, 28, who witnessed the second fall in Aspers, said: “I could not believe his behaviour. He was absolutely hammered.

“When I went back to work my mates were telling me how he was going to sit out three games because of an injury. I couldn’t believe it. I knew how it really happened.”

Carroll, who has just signed a new, £27,000-a-week, five-year contract, has been a regular at Aspers this season.

Carroll was with United captain Kevin Nolan at Aspers after the Toon’s 5-1 win over Sunderland in November.

He went on another huge bender on December 7 – the day after manager Chris Hughton was sacked.

Carroll is currently on a “mid season” break in Dubai and due back this week. He will take a fitness test on Thursday to see if he will be fit for next weekend’s match against Sunderland.

Newcastle United declined to comment on the incident last night.



Read more: http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news...#ixzz1CdAU0MCd
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[Kenneth]

There'll definitely be a scarf waving ceremony at some point.

[Kenneth]

The clip of his goal against us is on the bbc story of the transfer: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/foot...ol/9382215.stm . It's a really good strike.

[Rudo]

Out of Toon! Can Newcastle hero Andy Carroll be the new Kop idol at Liverpool

By Colin Young
Last updated at 12:35 AM on 1st February 2011

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Before the start of the season, Andy Carroll did not even know if he would be handed the Newcastle United No 9 shirt he had dreamed of wearing since he was a boy.

He will finish it as England’s most expensive striker at £35million and in the red of Liverpool.

Carroll, 22 next week, has gone for more than twice the value of Alan Shearer, the greatest player to wear the coveted black and white centre forward’s shirt.

He is worth more than World Cup winner David Villa, who joined Barcelona for £34.2m in the summer.

For an inexperienced player who has just returned from Sweden to get to the root of a worrying thigh problem, the fee Liverpool have agreed to pay is mind-boggling.

As Newcastle look to pick up the pieces, their fans may wonder where the club stand if Liverpool, in their current state, are such an attraction.

No doubt tripling his wages helped. It leaves Newcastle desperately short of a talismanic Geordie who can lead from the front, but it is great business for the owners.
A year ago, Carroll had only scored four goals and a player who had looked out of his depth in the Barclays Premier League when Newcastle were relegated was struggling in the Championship.

But as Newcastle gathered momentum in their charge back to the top flight, so Carroll found his feet. He finished last season as the club’s top scorer with 18 goals and a title medal.

The reward was one of the most significant No 9 shirts in the game.
Starting out: Carroll on his Premier League debut in 2007

Starting out: Carroll on his Premier League debut in 2007

Shearer was his hero as a boy. Carroll had a poster of the Newcastle captain on his bedroom wall, and watched the great goalscorer in awe for nearly a decade at St James’ Park.

Carroll grew into the role vacated by Shearer and, although he had a quiet game on Newcastle’s opening night at Old Trafford in August, he had done enough to stir interest in Sir Alex Ferguson, whose scouts have been regular visitors to watch him.

They were clearly not alone. The striker made his England debut against France in November, despite being hampered by the thigh problem which has sidelined him for almost a month.

Liverpool will know they have signed a striker who is a handful on and off the pitch. Far from a shy lad, Carroll has been involved in run-ins with team-mates and coaches throughout his time at Newcastle.

As he developed into a major figure on Tyneside, so those incidents became bigger, too. His first training ground skirmish with Charles N’Zogbia two years ago went almost unnoticed.

But last year, after a row over an ex-girlfriend with Steven Taylor, it was the defender who ended up with a wired jaw. Carroll, for his part, ended up with the majority of team-mates on his side.

Chief among them was captain Kevin Nolan, the self-appointed minder for the Gateshead-born lad.

After his court case last year, when Carroll was fined for an assault in a nightclub, Nolan even had the privilege of having Carroll as a house guest for a month.

If Kenny Dalglish could have secured one more deal last night, it would surely have been to sign Nolan, too.

Carroll may leave Newcastle with a heavy heart, but his decision to hand in a transfer request to move to Anfield is an indication of the ambition which drives him.

It is also a reminder of the hollow promises Newcastle fans have to live with. For more than a month — in fact he said it on his first day in the job — manager Alan Pardew insisted that Carroll was not for sale ‘at any price’.

And Carroll himself marked the signing of his contract in November with these words: ‘This deal is serious. I wouldn’t have signed it if I wanted to move somewhere else. This is the club I wanted to sign for.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1352335/Out-Toon-Can-Newcastle-hero-Andy-Carroll-new-Kop-idol-Liverpool.html#ixzz1CfJ8koI3