Carroll and Suarez were both signed on the January transfer deadline day. Suarez actually thought he was signed to line up alongside Torres. Torres was also sold on the same deadline day.
Carroll had played the first half of the season in great form, and was on track to finish with well over 20 league goals. On top of that, he didn’t want to go to Liverpool, but the club forced the move. He really didn’t want to be there, and it showed.
It’s true that he was never a 35m striker. On any other day of the year the fee would have been less. Carroll still would never have fit in. He never wanted to.
I always choose to just take that whole transfer deadline day as a whole. It winds up as Liverpool paid £58m for Carroll and Suarez, and received £50m for Torres.
It seemed to be a fair price for Torres at the time, but knowing how he then did at Chelsea, it now looks brilliant (for Liverpool). If you then think of the Carroll and Suarez deals as £13m for Carroll and £45m for Suarez, it suddenly doesn’t seem like such a bad bit of business at all.
Basically, Liverpool did very well on 2 of the 3 deals - enough to cancel out the one they did badly on.
It was around the time they signed Downing and I think Dalglish got that potential partnership all wrong. He had Carrol who was absolutely dominant in the air and Downing who had one of the best left feet in the country in terms of whipping crosses in, but was far from lethal when it came to finishing. So what did he do? Played Downing on the right, cutting in. The pair of them could have been deadly.
A lot of people still shit on Liverpool for this.
Carroll and Suarez were both signed on the January transfer deadline day. Suarez actually thought he was signed to line up alongside Torres. Torres was also sold on the same deadline day.
Carroll had played the first half of the season in great form, and was on track to finish with well over 20 league goals. On top of that, he didn’t want to go to Liverpool, but the club forced the move. He really didn’t want to be there, and it showed.
It’s true that he was never a 35m striker. On any other day of the year the fee would have been less. Carroll still would never have fit in. He never wanted to.
I always choose to just take that whole transfer deadline day as a whole. It winds up as Liverpool paid £58m for Carroll and Suarez, and received £50m for Torres.
It seemed to be a fair price for Torres at the time, but knowing how he then did at Chelsea, it now looks brilliant (for Liverpool). If you then think of the Carroll and Suarez deals as £13m for Carroll and £45m for Suarez, it suddenly doesn’t seem like such a bad bit of business at all.
Basically, Liverpool did very well on 2 of the 3 deals - enough to cancel out the one they did badly on.
It was around the time they signed Downing and I think Dalglish got that potential partnership all wrong. He had Carrol who was absolutely dominant in the air and Downing who had one of the best left feet in the country in terms of whipping crosses in, but was far from lethal when it came to finishing. So what did he do? Played Downing on the right, cutting in. The pair of them could have been deadly.