Ive had my doubts about carroll, but he is our center forward and we should all back him and hope confidence takes him forward..... What made Gary Speed such a good manager was that he was always behind his players
i completely agree that carroll has not been puttin in the effort that Crouch did in his initial drought. I just dont know what else to do other than back the lad and pray he starts do come up with the goods.....it s looking like we are not going to get a striker in the window...
We know he is better than he is playing though right? Get behind him, maybe sing his name a few times and applaud the knock downs that come off or a good effort that just goes wide - it can do wonders for confidence. At the end of the day this is our number 9 at present and that isn't going to change, we are half way through the season so if KK isn't buying anyone else we have to make the best of what we've got.
I've seen a lot of Carroll over the years and always knew he'd come good and make it. He seems to of taken a step back to how he was playing before Hughton formed the team around him. He'll come good though, that's for certain. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5aHzVPtJRU Watching that (slightly gay) video made me miss him but also made me realise how much Joey Barton did for him. Pretty much all his goals came from a Joey Barton cross from deep. You just need someone to understand Carroll and give him the service.
i think he needs confidence so i am hoping we see a cup final and a fa cup 5th round might prick his ears up and get him fired up to get a starting berth.
Why does everyone assume just because someone is taller than average that the only option is hoofball?
I'll try and look at this from a perspective with some of the emotion taken out (not easy as we're all fans and feel strongly one way or another) and give my opinions on Andy because there are a fair few points listed above that I can't argue with and some I can but I don't want to get into a slanging match with individuals about what is obviously becoming a very devisive subject. 1 - Carroll hasn't so far put in the work-rate we expect from a forward given the task of leading the line. He hasn't been physical enough and doesn't seem to have the positional sense of a guy who will get 15-25 goals a season. However none of us actually know what instructions he has from the management team...as far as we know his instructions might be "don't run around like a loon chasing the ball around, we just want you to occupy the two centre backs" (or something along those lines). As for his positional sense it is massively frustrating but again I think it would be fair comment to say that we haven't played to his strengths at all this year (apart from Gerrard second half against Newcastle) and so given time this is the sort of thing that is possible to improve in a player. 2 - The price tag was nothing to do with him and inevitabely it is now looking like a ****ing big millstone around both his and consequently the teams neck. Should he be able to deal with this? Personally I think he should (if you put pen to paper on a contract you have to be man enough to know what goes with the huge wages you receive) but then I accept he is only a young lad and deserves at least a bit more time to prove he was worth us putting our faith in him. 3 - Forwards are confidence players (in general) and I do think being in and out of the team just isn't helping him in any way whatsoever. Now if Kenny is leaving him out for tactical reasons then I think he is making a mistake and I would have some sympathy with the lad especially given the performances from certain other players who have played in his place (Saturdays game being a perfect example). However if he is being left on the bench because of a lack of effort in training then it is a serious issue that we need to look at very closely as a club...is it due to lack of fitness, lack of desire or simply lack of ability? Any of these would definately put his future at Liverpool in doubt. 4 - My own personal opinion of him in a Liverpool jersey so far is that he has been a massive let down (whatever the behind the scenes issues might be) any player who can't control a ball is worth nothing to us. I've never been able to get my head around how a person who plays practically every day of their life can fail to do the simple things like control a ball or lay off a simple 3 yard pass. It is beyond me and I can only think it's because his head's in the shed. 5 - In fairness to the lad I personally haven't heard tales of him getting up to any mischief since being at Liverpool so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt about his off field behaviour for now. 6 - Where do we go from here with him? Basically we HAVE to give him a bit more time (IMO). Having spent 35 million pounds on him it is inconceivable that we even consider casting him aside yet. No business in the world can survive by taking a loss of 20 odd million ponds on any asset in the space of a year. Quite simply I think Kenny has to find a way to make this work or at least he has to try to (and I don't doubt he will be trying bloody hard). At the end of the day I still believe this kid has it in his locker to be a very good player and I am certain that IF we ever see the type of player he was at Newcastle when he's wearing a Red shirt then we will have ourselves a guy that will cause many defenders sleepless nights. I'm as frustrated as any of you lot with what we've seen so far but ultimately i do think that for now at least we cut him a bit of slack and really get behind him. Just remember that even players like Toshack and Beardsley looked like absolute bags of ****e in their first 12 months at the club but once the goals and thus the confidence started to flow then the rest as they say is history
Well I'm glad someone bothered to read it thanks RHC I've never written so much before...usually I just put...."Carroll is a big fat lazy lump of **** who needs to pull his socks up". I didn't actually realise how long it was until I posted it (said the bishop to the choirboy).
Its a beautifully written piece there Billy Balanced and with demonstrated thinking - I've heard nothing about Carroll out on the tiles either - Downing's been in the tabloids for breaking up a fight between his ex and someone in his group (must be his new bird), but nothing about Carroll. I doubt his fitness is up to match standard - he's had 8 full games this season in the league, the majority of the other 11 have been flits from the bench for the last 15 or so minutes. As I've said elsewhere, he's scored twice in the games where he's been on from the start - 2 in 8 isn't a £35mil player, but you can equally argue that several players haven't performed (Downing particularly, and Adam consistently; even Suarez has been pretty goal-shy for him). We've been close in performances, but not gotten the rewards. Stoke was probably one of the worst in terms of performance we've seen this season...
RHC - the Spurs game was ****ing dire too - and we were punished big time for that one. Admittedly, it was a tactical ****up by Kenny, that one, but still...
I'd like to throw Swansea in there, outclassed, outpassed for a good period of the game and were lucky their finishing was as bad as ours. At home that should have been 3 points.
Fair play to Swansea, they've been playing football the right way there, on the deck and passing it about. Not like they just get 11 behind and hump it long on the break...
I hope they don't do a blackpool though, they were the same way and it ended up costing them. I think they have a bit more about their team though Swansea.
We were down to 9 because Kenny decided to put Skrtel at RB against Bale... Adam got his booking covering back and making a bad challenge, and Bale owned Skrtel until he was sent off...
