Yes, I called fellow posters wankers for not thinking Andy Carroll is awesome. (In your little hipster world).
Now, how did you feel when Andy scored a last minute winning goal against Everton in the Semi Final of the FA Cup? How did you feel when, as we were getting fucking embarrassed by Chelsea in the FA Cup final, Andy came on and fucking knocked ten kinds of shite out of them, they were pleading for the whistle? I felt fucking brilliant, meself like.
Brilliant also. Three other moments spring to mind too:
- The first time Carroll dominated a game, when he scored a screamer and a brilliant header against City and we absolutely trounced them.
- Carroll knocking down a header for Suarez to score a tap in for the first time, the beginnings of what everyone hoped would be an amazing partnership.
- Stevie coming back from injury (I think) and delivering the crosses to Carroll that we'd hoped Downing and Adam would, giving him a few brilliant scoring chances in a single game.
I wanted Carroll to succeed, and I was hoping that over the course of last season Kenny would improve his positioning and get him attacking the ball in the same way he did before he signed for us.
He didn't, and aside from maybe a month where he played well his positioning was terrible, his strength on the ball wasn't great and his flick-ons were rarely aimed at a player, just in the rough direction of up the field. His headers at goal were still good but he was often positioned so far away from the goal, anything from 12-18 yards that no amount of power or accuracy was ever going to result in a header going in. He has a hammer of a left foot too, but again his shots were often from so far out that they rarely got through the players in front of him.
At West Ham his scoring has improved, but is that because he's better than he was at Liverpool, or because he's playing in a team built to suit him again?
I'm not saying he's the worst player to keep, I won't slag him off if we do, and if he scores a load for us then fantastic, but I still remember the player who looked like he was on a different pitch to players like Maxi and Suarez for most of his time here, and I don't see him working well with any of our attackers bar maybe Gerrard (who works well with everyone) and Enrique.
Given that we play with one striker, that we already have at least two strikers I'd rather we played ahead of him, and that plenty of other areas in the team lack depth, he's probably the one player we can sell for a decent amount, save a lot of wages on, and do without.
