More Carroll calling

I don't know if this is worthy of a thread of its own but it made me laugh, just ignore the first three paragraphs (in the interest of journalistic integrity I included the first three paragraphs against my will).

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

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.

 

A good read but a bit unfair to imply he is only good at heading, ie 'still doing his "passing"'.
His ball control was quite good for us and while he wasn't a great passer he was ok. His shots were very good too (what you want of a striker) and he is neither slow or rapid.

It is true Liverpool aren't playing to his strengths butI think he looks lessfit and strong too.

 

It's just the price-tag isn't. Liverpool are performing as expected, they're winning games, he's just not scoring.

I still think he could be quality, his link-up play is good, they're just not playing to his strengths. I'd bring him to the world cup anyway.

I love the bit about him looking like a drunken horse.

 

He will come good...

But, not at Liverpool.