OK, well I don't agree! Of course a player under contract can't leave without the club first accepting the transfer. But a contract goes two ways - the club have agreed with the player to employ them for a set amont of time and pay the a set amount of money, the player has agreed to play for the club. Just because the club want to break the contract does not mean that the player has too! Ok, i'm being a bit naive, a club accepting a transfer offer implies to the player that they aren't in the clubs plans. But Carroll, as you mentioned, was a special case. He KNEW that the club would play him if he stayed - there would be no bad blood. We loved him, and we wanted him to be our new number 9.
And so we are left with money. We were offering less than Liverpool, significantly less. But let's put this in real terms... He was still earning £35,000 a week here. He could survive pretty well on that, as we are all well aware. He made more than I do in a year. He would have been financially stable enough to decide to ignore the extra money (and he probably wouldn't even notice the difference by the time he was 30 anyway...) If he loved the Toon like he said, all he had to do was say no. And that is the nub of the situation IMO.
He obviously did want to stay, as you mentioned, he asked for a contract. But he didn't want to stay enough - that is where my logic leads me.
And it may be bullshit - but if I had the choice between playing for the Toon for £35,000 or Liverpool for £80,000, I wouldn't even have to think about it. Because I don't think there is much difference between the two in real terms - especially when I think about playing football, as the number 9 mind you, at St James' with every home fan singing my name. That is worth more then money...
