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Even A Fan Couldn’t Love Him: Liverpool's Andy Carroll
Written when Liverpool signed the big man from Newcastle, this article has something of the crystal ball about it now that Carroll is struggling to get in the first team...
'To call him Neanderthal would be to short-change the unevolved'
While most Liverpool fans are dreaming of the wingers we need to sign to provide ammo for the big lump, I’m spitting feathers that we’ve sp*nked £35m on an ex-Newcastle United ape.
When his time comes, you can all but guarantee every newspaper carrying Frank Skinner’s obituary will give heavy rotation to the words ‘Three’ and ‘Lions’. As legacies go, not a cure for cancer but still infinitely more impressive than yours or mine.
However, should I still be around to raise a whimsical eyebrow in Frank’s honour, my over-riding memory of the man will not be “…and Nobby dancing” but a long-forgotten gag he made in 1994 at the expense of Leeds United.
Rarely is classical literature used as a springboard for terrace humour, a fact that only serves to make Skinner’s use of the “exchange me for a goat” monologue from Othello as proof that Shakespeare had prior knowledge of Howard Wilkinson’s defiantly cretinous plans to replace Eric Cantona with Brian Deane all the more impressive. The exact date of broadcast escapes me but it was expertly delivered from the comfort of the Fantasy Football League sofa sometime in the aforementioned year. Blink and you’d have missed it. I didn’t, and it made me laugh out loud on public transport for many a coming year.
Then one day the laughter stopped.
January 31st, 2011, to be precise. Having just watched the football club I’d supported for 35 birthdays p*ss away a million pounds for each of those years filling the vacant Liverpool shirt of one Fernando Torres with what appeared from most angles to be a giraffe with an ASBO, I realised the joke was now very much on me.
Look, nobody wants to dwell on Deadline Day’s sensibility pogrom a minute longer than they have to, so let’s not mince our words: the former Magpie Andy Carroll is an oaf. A classless, guileless, one-dimensional oaf. And try as I might to convince myself otherwise, no amount of goals, flattering Opta stats or England caps will ever – ever – fool me into loving him.
To call this Loony Toon Neanderthal would be to short-change the unevolved. How on earth he’s come to be regarded as a footballer I’ll never know. He wouldn’t even be allowed into Arsenal’s club shop, never mind one of their teams.
Had Uncle Roy then promptly flushed the lion’s share of the El Nino windfall down the sh*tter drafting in Jimmy Nail’s pet ape as a replacement, Forensics would still be retrieving his entrails from the Stanley Park treetops
He’s Duncan Ferguson without the best bit: the sweatband. A liability off the pitch; an unsightly battering ram on it. If Al Qaeda designed a footballer, he’d be it. Hijack his mind and have him run forehead-first toward the infidel. And when I say run, I do, of course, mean lumber. Pedestrian? Put it this way, Liverpool labrador Dirk Kuyt, the only professional athlete I’m aware of who runs slower than he walks, is going to have to put the anchors on while Big Andy catches up.
While every other Liverpool fan seems cock-a-hoop to have the big lunk on board, I never received the free hallucinogens the club mailed out to the faithful, the powerful psychotropics that have our new No.9 looking like a messiah rather than Mike Teague in a football kit. So I’m left only to wonder soberly how events would’ve panned out had the previous incumbent overseen the deal instead of King Kenny.
In selling former Liverpool darling Torres alone there’d have been hundreds, thousands, burning Hodgson effigies outside the ground. Luckily all we got was a couple of dingbats melting Torres shirts behind the Kop. Had Uncle Roy then promptly flushed the lion’s share of the El Nino windfall down the sh*tter drafting in Jimmy Nail’s pet ape as a replacement, Forensics would still be retrieving his entrails from the Stanley Park treetops.
To make matters worse, on top of the arrests, the sick notes, the corn-rows, and the jaegerbombs, it’s since transpired our new lummox was so reluctant to sign for us he virtually had to be forced over the threshold at gunpoint, instantaneously stripping all passion from a player whose only worthy attribute is blood-curdling levels of local pride.
With that gone, he’s nowt but an empty vessel. A 6ft 4ins footballing void. A big black hole so short on smarts he can be easily outwitted by a humble barstool.
Now, I know it may seem a trifle harsh to be judging a player before he’s even kicked a ball, but to plagiarise a well-worn edict, you don’t need to lick a turd to know it tastes like s*it. So I’ll go on telling anyone who’ll listen that I will never like the man; that I will never like the player; that I will never like the style of football he engenders. And for all the route-one filth he’ll one day foist on us, we may as well have stuffed the money in a shirt, planted it scarecrow-style in the opposition’s penalty area and commenced the barrage of aimless punts. The results would be much the same and with the money we’d save on keeping an artless Geordie cr*pshack out of jail we could treat ourselves to a proper f**king footballer for a change.
What Liverpool Cabbies Think Of Andy Carroll
Liverpool’s Andy Carroll Broke My Newcastle Heart
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COMMENTS
Darren - I hope you're going to eat a large portion of humble pie once he starts banging the goals in for you. I support Newcastle and was gutted to see him go. Gutted. What was you're net spend in the transfer window? £8 million? And for that you got Suarez and Carroll. You can't complain. Look at the shit we have to put up with and think on. At least you're going forward.
He's Hately without the all-year tan. He's Carl Leaburn with a few more pounds. He can kick the ball really quite hard, but he's not LFC is he? Is he? Quality article Mr Ford.
an ad hominem attack...the last refuge of a bitter journalist with nothing constructive to say.
How you made it as a journalist il never know. You call yourself a fan? a moron is what u are. a gutter journalist, your vile attack on a man you have yet to see kick a ball is laughable. you've embarrassed yourself with this absolute nonsense. well done. hope he scores bag loads purely to spite u, u attention seeking muppet.
Our net spend was £2.3m & I don't think Darren supports Newcastle, so why would he care who's playing up front for you?? You've received £35m for an unproven player & with a bit of luck Ashley will let it be spent wisely. A vile attack, Shane?? Don't you think you've taken this a little too personally? Is big Andy a mate?? Was the chrome plated car your idea?? Maybe take a breath, re-read the article & develop a sense of humour. See, that's better.. xx
It made I smile. Hah
A wife-beater in a Chrome Range Rover. What's not to like?
Football is a farce. Carroll is a lobotomised twerp. 10 out of 10 Darren.
HOw do you know exactly that he had to be forced to sign for us??
Think this could be the end of a great friendship between these two people! Darren obviously knows Andy REALLY well to make comments like these .. and he must have a insist much closer than just picking up what has been written in the press or from hear say (no not the band). And for my opinion just using clever metaphors and swirling landscopic visions doesn't make a good piece of writing ... But hey I don't know Darren so who am I to judge!
insist? ... mmm? mean insight! see the winds of scopeism tis blowing over my writing too! ... sorry!
I don't really agree, at all with the "i don't like Andy Carroll"-part but i love the Denny Crane-style rant about something you dislike just for the sake of it. Keep it up! and just because you're sayng his shite with clever metaphors doesn't mean it's the same like just saying he's shite, kinda.
Stop talkin' about Carroll until he's even played one single game.. insanely stupid
Best supporters in the world eh?
Get a grip you mess.
You haven't even seen him play. I'm with Tom okker on this one. Go and support Chelsea you muppet.
silly article Torres hasnt been our darling for some time now. Dont comment until hes played a few games, not even just one. BITTER, BITTER NEWCASTLE FAN
I'd love to know what style of play Liverpool were playing before Carroll signed, that renders him not good enough?? The whole article is idiotic on every conceivable level.
Liverpool have paid £35 million for a thug with a poor injury record who was outscored by Nicky Maynard and Gary Hooper in last year's Championship. There's no way of dressing it up any other way - they totally had their pants pulled down. "He became a legend before he became a player." So said Joe Royal about Duncan Ferguson many years ago. I see a similar thing happening here. The fan base of a struggling mid-table side need heroes. And in Andy Carroll they've got a swashbuckling, hard drinking perfect fit.
If you had actually watched him play before, you wouldn't be dismissing him as an "unsightly battering ram"...
Ok Darren, it's fair enough to question the hefty price tag but if you can't see this guys potential then maybe you should choose a new sport to write about. He brings a whole new dimension to our strike force. One that (on paper) will work perfectly with Suarez, and that has seen him terrorise Premiership centre backs this season. Your calling every aspect of the player into question before he's even played a game, typical pessimistic journo attitude... simply a bore to read.
I'm just guessing here Ibrasaad but I reckon Darren probably has seen Andy Carroll play and that is what he is basing the battering ram comment on. When pundits, sports commentators and ex professionals refer to Carroll as a throwback to the days forwards would bully defenders with their physical prowes, what do you think they mean by that? Or are you saying his style may have changed since arriving (injured) at Liverpool?
The irony of Liverpool fans calling into question moral fibre and integrity is certainly not lost on me. Christ.
Well, I've watched him play at least 5 times this season and he definitely has a lot more to his game than mere physicality. He has good technique, and he actually links up play very well with the midfield runners (Barton and Nolan). He's not one-dimensional at all, though I do think that spending 35 million on him is ridiculous.
I'm all over the place with this one as I liked Tarzan In The City's thick-local-boy passion for the Toon but as a Man U fan I'm hoping it now goes all Birtles for him. Also I'm in no doubt (and in total agreement with Dazza) that Woy would have been absolutely savaged had Carroll been his purchase but am steeling myself for his appearance this weekend particularly as Vidic will be missing. God I hope he's a f*cking disaster.
Terrible subject material, terrible grammar errors, nobody is on your side, we all read your entire article to see how many stupid ideas you could throw together. You have no respect for a massive club with the best manager in the world if you're calling his signings primates. Grow a pair, remember how to write, and have an old, splinter-filled wood rod ready to jam up your arse tomorrow. You will walk alone
Goooooooooooooooooooooooo Carroll
2 words. Stevie. Gerrard.
To totally ridicule the boy before he's had a few 90 mins under his belt is laughable,under Dalglish "The Reds" have returned back to the pass&move style of old and you don't honestly think Kenny never thought how Carroll will fit into the new system that he&Clarke are now implementing!!!With Suarez's movement i believe they will be a fine pairing once they start playing together, so get off the lads back he never decided what his transfer fee was.For once in god knows how long it seems we(or most) of us are all united in wanting LFC to start competing again at the highest level and now we have a manager we can trust to do right by the club with no agenda....long may it continue.
Good grief. What a steaming pile of ill-informed bollocks. Check out his goal against your useless rabble in December. 30 yards, left footed, missile into the corner. That's some "one dimensional oaf". You're just another woe-is-me, self-entitled scouse ****. When he starts banging in the goals and you've got England's centre forward for the next 10 years, will we see a retraction of this utter nonsense?
LionofGosforth? It's you, isn't Big Al?
ok, so now he's had a few 90 minutes under his belt, what's the verdict?
Nick... you have been quoted word for word on sky tonight, after the match
Howay the Scousers!
Great performance against a good defence last night. The lad can play.
Did the pundits not say the same when a Geordie Alan Shearer was bought by Kenny for Blackburn Rovers in 1994?
Spot on la
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