Really? Does for me.

Shame, cos it's a good piece.

"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.

..... 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. ... hurling Carroll in among Liverpool's Su?rez-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.

... 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.

....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 we have 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."

Posted By: Tricky Hawes on February 7th 2012 at 11:14:03

Message Thread

Reply to Message

In order to add a post to the WotB Message Board you must be a registered WotB user.

If you are not yet registered then please visit the registration page. You should ensure that their browser is setup to accept cookies.

Log in