Andy Carroll - Best Striker in the World

[kris90210]

Kris 1, Lecter 0?

Come on Lecter

Please let's not turn this into a competition. I have a lot of respect for Lecter as a poster, and I'm not looking to argue with him. Just sensibly (hopefully) debate the points he's raised.

First time I've seen you on here Keith - welcome to the site

[Lecter]

Couldn't agree less - I see Suarez as our most creative player

Suarez has 5 assists - 1 in the league 4 in the cup

Adam has 6 assists (dont know the breakdown)

Bellamy has 5 assists also

I'm not sure how many goal scoring chances Suarez has created or how many easy chances players have missed from those goalscoring chances but in terms of assists (which is what many of us are criticising Downing for) these are the facts

Oh and if I am not mistaken hes scored 1 and assisted 1 since the Evra debacle (in 10 games)

[kris90210]

Suarez has 5 assists - 1 in the league 4 in the cup

Adam has 6 assists (dont know the breakdown)

Bellamy has 5 assists also

I'm not sure how many goal scoring chances Suarez has created or how many easy chances players have missed from those goalscoring chances but in terms of assists (which is what many of us are criticising Downing for) these are the facts

Oh and if I am not mistaken hes scored 1 and assisted 1 since the Evra debacle (in 10 games)

You're going down the route of over-analysing the stats in my opinion. Suarez may not have had the final touch for the assist, but how many goals has he been indirectly responsible for. Through his movement, through drawing defenders to him, from starting the attack that results in the assist (and then the goal). The assist stat is not something to be overly relied upon in my opinion.

You've only got to watch Suarez play to see that he's a far more creative player than Adam. And that leads me to question the validy of statistics that seem to suggest otherwise.

[Lecter]

You're going down the route of over-analysing the stats in my opinion. Suarez may not have had the final touch for the assist, but how many goals has he been indirectly responsible for. Through his movement, through drawing defenders to him, from starting the attack that results in the assist (and then the goal). The assist stat is not something to be overly relied upon in my opinion.

You've only got to watch Suarez play to see that he's a far more creative player than Adam. And that leads me to question the validy of statistics that seem to suggest otherwise.

And for me you are being dazzled by his skills without looking at the real substance

Like when he dribbles round 3 men only to **** the ball uselessly over the bar

Or goes on a run down the wing only to be crowded out when a simple ball to a teammate is easily on

It again comes back to decision making and this is probably the biggest flaw in his game

[Alex]

Suarez has been our best player this season. There are plenty others that deserve our critique. Kyut for one has been poor this year.

[Lecter]

I think Lecter is correct that in terms of production Suarez's goal scoring record is not the greatest. Conversion rate of 8% is not good and that needs to improve.

That said, I do agree with you that Suarez is much more complete player and in terms of skills he is miles ahead of Carroll.

His game has very few holes and I certainly cannot say the same for Carroll.

Suarez's conversion rate is now 7%

Last time I looked Carrolls was 6%

Suarez is a more complete and skillful player no arguments from me on that score

My biggest argument is that for all his skill and ability his end product is poor because the biggest flaw in his game dramatically reduces his effectiveness

[Lecter]

Suarez has been our best player this season. There are plenty others that deserve our critique. Kyut for one has been poor this year.

Suarez has looked our biggest threat this year (but again without being too productive)

Kuyt is finished

Our best player has been Lucas imo

[Shaggy]

Andy Carroll is the new Sting

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/jan/13/andy-carroll-liverpool-pain?CMP=twt_gu

Andy Carroll's misery at Liverpool has left him the king of pain

A year on from the striker's £35m transfer from Newcastle it seems a very public death has been played out

Barney Ronay
guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 January 2012 12.52 GMT
Article history


In his time at Liverpool Andy Carroll has looked so lonely. Photograph: Richard Sellers/Sportsphoto/Allstar

One of the most terrifying things about the internet is the way in which it draws you inexorably towards what you really, secretly, actually want, offering somewhere in its great boiling unfenced farrago an absolute match for whatever half-realised desire might flicker across your networked lobes. You cannot escape. The allure of endless choice will find you out, whether it is the simple urge to argue about cricket or a powerful carnal attraction to certain breeds of Pacific starfish. For me the internet has recently provided some troubling revelations in its capacity as a universal jukebox that offers access to any musical genre unfettered by conventions of taste or fashion. It has been a bit of a shock. But in quiet moments at home I have found myself increasingly drawn to the music of Sting.

Naturally, this is embarrassing. Sting is not cool. He isn't even anti-cool, remaining fixed in the public consciousness as a kind of humourless celebrity, the kind of man who strides about his mansion in tailored robes and makes a big deal of baking his own bread from fair trade Zambian spelt flour and who probably has an air-conditioned anteroom full of ancient first edition calfskin texts of grand literary classics that he occasionally peruses late at night sitting cross-legged and naked except for an Elizabethan pince-nez.

I know all this. But the unfettered pull of the internet tells me that he is also a lyrical master – really, some of those words are very good – plus perhaps the finest cod reggae Geordie-Jamaican voice of the last century (note that I am keeping this decent by sticking to the grudgingly tolerated Police). There is also something to be said for the yuppie saxophone pop of early solo Sting, just prior to the lost years of early onset rainforest Jesus syndrome.

The reason for mentioning this is that I was reminded of Sting while watching Andy Carroll play for Liverpool against Manchester City. Or rather, not so much reminded of Sting as the sad-faced Amazonian tribesman Sting used to bring with him to awards ceremonies and TV talk shows. This is who Carroll reminds me of these days: a gnarled, dignified, quietly obsolete figure, carrying with him above all an air of terrible sadness. The world that might have nourished this towering, peat-smelling specimen from English football's withered folk past has now vanished, but still we parade him about under the main stage lights, his face a haunting mask of ancient confusion.

It is safe to say now that Carroll's move to Liverpool is one of the great transfer disasters, Newcastle's accounts department aside. And yet the sadness of Carroll feels terribly unfair, firstly because he is a very talented player. Carroll is brilliant at heading the ball. Unfortunately, this is pretty much an obsolete skill among those who aspire to the top level of modern football. It seems poignant that Carroll will play on Saturday against Stoke City, the Premier League team who pass the ball longest and highest and who might still have the greatest use for his potency. As it is, hurling Carroll in among Liverpool's Suarez-geared short-passing attack is a bit like a classical orchestra deciding to recruit a heavy metal guitarist who proceeds to lurk at the front, mooching and smoking and producing the odd crashingly inappropriate power solo.

Because he is a good team man Carroll will continue to run willingly, lumbering sideways like a drunken horse, still doing his "passing", addressing the ball with the finesse of a man booting an old hubcap along a motorway verge. But what he really wants to do is fly free, wrenching his neck muscles majestically, toppling like a collapsed telephone mast, seeking the kind of perfect swinging cross Joey Barton would often launch in search of that club-like forehead.

This is Carroll's signature at Liverpool: he seems constantly in need of something that just won't come, waving his arms, pointing at his own head, semaphoring his own irrelevance. "It was a lonely role for And Carroll," Gary Lineker mused on Wednesday night, after a game in which Carroll could occasionally be seen flopping zanily about the City penalty area, as though someone had thrown a mattress on to the pitch from a helicopter . But it is always a lonely role for this oddly poignant figure, perhaps English football's last ever attempt at a big money all-conquering targetman.

This is not a rant against the tidal urgencies of English football, the vision of the game as a primarily athletic pursuit where the power to leap and wrestle is just as important as the ability to tread daintily. It is instead a lament for Carroll, and for the lost grandeur of the lineage of Carrolls, English football's rootsy history of big men and targetmen, clunking assault towers of the penalty area. The Carroll signing looks above all like a moment of nostalgic optimism, a dream of a world where this kind of thing is still relevant, where English football has finally come up with the perfect £35m medieval battering ram.

But the sadness of Carroll is rooted in his own obvious discomfort and unhappiness. It is now almost a year since his move and the image of Carroll striding off a plane in ragged designer jeans is still fresh. In the meantime he has played out in public a kind of species death. This will surely be the last time anyone in English football pays that much money for that kind of player. Perhaps with some returning confidence he might yet employ his thunderous left foot to good effect, or offer glimpses of that ball butting potency. But it is a battle against the tide. For Carroll it is, as his fellow Geordie might have pointed out, so lonely out there.

[Keith]

Apologies to Kris and Lecter if you misunderstood my 1-0 posting, I was merely enjoying your debate and i didn't want it to end

PS - Thank you Kris for the welcome

[~LFCHistory~]

Some good points in that article.

Top European teams don't use lumbering target men anymore, the signing was a mistake on so many levels.

When Andy is sold there will be a sense of relief amongst all Liverpool fans.

[Lecter]

When Andy is sold there will be a sense of relief amongst all Liverpool fans.

Thanks for speaking on behalf of ALL of us

[Keith]

Suarez has 5 assists - 1 in the league 4 in the cup

Adam has 6 assists (dont know the breakdown)

Bellamy has 5 assists also

I'm not sure how many goal scoring chances Suarez has created or how many easy chances players have missed from those goalscoring chances but in terms of assists (which is what many of us are criticising Downing for) these are the facts

Oh and if I am not mistaken hes scored 1 and assisted 1 since the Evra debacle (in 10 games)

Now this is the problem with statistics. My view of Suarez's creativity is based on what I see during the matches rather than these cold hard facts.

I seem to recall that at the end of Aquilani's first season that him being at (or very near) the top of the assists was used to try to say he was a success (but I guess that's another story)

PS - I would like to clarify that I agree with everything else that you are saying, I'm just surprised that you are so critical of Suarez

[~LFCHistory~]

Thanks for speaking on before of ALL of us

OK not you Lec. I'm sure after Andy is gone will you maintain that he failed here because Kenny didn't use him properly and not because he's an extremely limited footballer who isn't good enough for a club that plays modern pass and move football.

[Keith]

Thanks for speaking on before of ALL of us

[dww]

Some good points in that article.

Top European teams don't use lumbering target men anymore, the signing was a mistake on so many levels.

When Andy is sold there will be a sense of relief amongst all Liverpool fans.

I'm not sure that top European teams have really done it at any point in the last 30 years really. But it is worth noting that most of our games are in the PL and that at present we aren't a top team.

Carroll will end up being a plan B in my opinion but it can be very useful thing to have. He's certainly better than he has shown so far. I do expect him to improve but it won't be to the level of say peak Torres. I also think opinions and feelings are a lot more split about him than you make out.