Not sure. He seems to have left him out a fair bit, but I can't remember how much fitness has played a part... seems like it coincided with coming back from injuries?
Rodgers
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Not sure. He seems to have left him out a fair bit, but I can't remember how much fitness has played a part... seems like it coincided with coming back from injuries?
He needs a run of games to get good though. Don't see him getting it unless there's an injury
I'd have Lallana in the side ahead of Coutinho every day of the fucking week.
Lallana creates and scores goals. Coutinho evades opponents on the halfway line.
Bit harsh that and I'm a massive fan of Lallana. Lallana's got 17 goals in all comps since coming up to the Premiership, so an average of 5..6 goals a season. 17 in 95 appearances over the last three years, against Coutinho's 10 goals in 80 games over the last three years. Not a wealth of difference really and Coutinho has age on his side to get better and better. They both have 2 assists this season, though Coutinho has played 4 more games. Last season Coutinho got 7 assists, Lallana got 6.
There's not really alot to choose between them, they're both good and have the potential to be better. They both should be playing together. Like I've said before, it's not a competition between the two. If you've got two really good, creative players, play them together!
Why does it have to be an either/or? Why be so down on one because you're a fan of the other? I just don't get it. Or why Rodgers apparently doesn't rate him - he was the only player he seemed to actively be chasing in the Summer.
I would strongly consider signing up Nicola Cortese (to replace Ayre). Considering the job he's done at Southampton, one can only imagine what he could do with a bigger brand and resources.
This is the sort of thing that used to drive me mad about Rodgers. I know most were happy he bombed Carroll out but there was no need for it to have been done this way. Thankfully he seems to have dropped that sort of nonsense nowadays.
Exclusive Rory Smith meets Andy Carroll, who returns to Anfield today for the first time since the Liverpool manager sold him to West Ham
Andy Carroll does not miss a beat. He has been asked to provide an illustration of how he knew, in the summer of 2012, that his Liverpool career was over, to describe precisely what it was that convinced him he and Brendan Rodgers could never work together. Straightaway, he accuses the Liverpool manager of lying.
“With Brendan Rodgers, there was a lot going on,” he says. From experience, it is safe to say that as an interviewee, Carroll does not do artifice and he does not do euphemism. He is markedly calm and casual as he describes his dark, final days at Liverpool.
“What he was saying to me and what was actually happening [were different things]. He was telling me one thing to my face, then I’d leave the training ground and he would ring me and tell me a completely different thing.
“He would say: ‘You’re going to play every week, you’re going to play every game up front with [Luis] Suárez’. I’d leave and get home and he would ring me and say: ‘Fulham and West Ham want you and I think it’s best you should go.’ I had just had a conversation with him ten minutes ago. So I would go back and see him and he would say the opposite again.
“It was the same thing round and round and round. On phone calls, it was: ‘I think you should go.’ To my face it was: ‘You’ll start every week’. It was mixed messages. He was messing with my head. I lost respect for him, to be honest.
“Another example: I went to Hearts for the [Europa League qualifier]. I got up there. He said I was starting. I woke up in the morning and he came in and said: ‘I think you’ve got a hamstring problem, you’re not going to start.’ I said my hamstring was fine. He said I’d be on the bench. I got to the ground and I wasn’t even on the bench. I was the only one missing out.
“It was just messing me about. I was angry. I knew it was time to go. I thought I just want to play football. I didn’t need this. Under Brendan I knew I was never going to play, with what he was saying to me.
“If he had said straightaway I wasn’t going to play, I’d have said fair enough, you’re a new manager, it’s your decision. You didn’t sign me, fair enough. He did it to a few other players, too, players who are not there now. I didn’t need to speak to anyone about it. I just knew it was a breakdown. If the manager is treating me like this, [I thought] there is no reason for me to be at Liverpool.”
Two and a half years on, Carroll returns to Anfield this afternoon as a West Ham player. Thanks to a combination of injuries and the terms of his initial loan move to Upton Park, it will be the first time he has been back to the club who, in 2011, made him the most expensive English player in history.
The accusations regarding his treatment by Rodgers have not been substantiated by the Northern Irishman. For Carroll, enough water has passed under the bridge for the 26-year-old to recount his dealings with his former manager with no real rancour. There is similarly no trace of bitterness in his voice as he discusses his feelings towards Liverpool as a whole. He is at his happiest now, he says, working under Sam Allardyce for a West Ham team he feels “is only going up”. He is over his injuries. He is allowing his thoughts, just a little, to drift towards further international recognition. Carroll is in a good place.
He does not give the impression, particularly, that he would join the modern fad of refraining from celebrating should he score against his former employers, but equally does not seem to have a burning desire for revenge. Returning to Liverpool, he says, is not the emotional drain that going back to Newcastle for the first time was.
“That was tough,” he says. “I grew up there, I had a season ticket there, I supported them for years and still do now. It was hard to hear your own fans getting on your back. I knew I would get some from the Newcastle fans. That was disappointing. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong, but obviously it’s something. There are some emotions with Liverpool, but it is not a team I grew up with. It was just a team I was at for a short time and I have moved on.”
His prime emotion when he thinks back to his time at Anfield, he says, is “more frustration than regret”. It may surprise him that there will be plenty in attendance today who share that view, and not simply because of the chronic shyness in front of goal of Rodgers’ side.
Carroll’s debut was a long time in coming. He had signed — on that bizarre night when Fernando Torres went to Chelsea — with an injury, and it was not until early March that he was ready to appear.
The intervening weeks had brought about a torrent of bafflement and mirth that the club’s American owners had sanctioned such a vast outlay on such a raw talent.
He first appeared as a substitute during a game against Manchester United. It was the perfect setting, really. Dirk Kuyt had scored a hat-trick but Suárez had been the star, teeing up all three, tormenting the hated enemy. The game was won. The mood was buoyant. Anfield was crowing. Then Carroll, the £35 million man, bounded on to the field. His first involvement was to contest a header from a Pepe Reina goal kick. He won it, emphatically. The sight was cheered as loudly as a goal.
“I can remember coming on and winning my first header,” he says. “The noise all kicked off. But I never really got a grip on being fit. The frustration is that I could not get myself going. I went there injured, I was rushing myself back to be fit because I wanted to play and they were rushing me back, too. That meant I would play one game, then miss two, then play another and so on. Then I’d be out and it was a snowball effect.”
Then, of course, out went Kenny Dalglish — who referred to him, affectionately, as “Big Andy” — and in came Rodgers, very much a Carroll-sceptic. The Northern Irishman’s belief, it seemed, was that his powerhouse centre forward suited only one type of game. He was a target man, a long-ball magnet, a heavyweight in a bantam world. Rodgers decided that his face did not fit.
This is the only point where Carroll, reclining in his seat at West Ham’s training ground, grows agitated. He has heard this accusation too many times and, though he insists that he is “not bothered by other people’s opinions,” it clearly strikes a nerve. Not least, perhaps, because it haunts him even now.
When Sam Allardyce’s side started the season playing quick, incisive football with Diafra Sakho and Enner Valencia up front — thanks to Carroll’s injury — there was a worry around Upton Park that, once the striker returned, all that progress would be lost, that West Ham would revert to a less sophisticated style.
“We play in exactly the same way,” Carroll says. “I know we do, because the training is exactly the same, the way we set up. It is just perception. Because I am tall and win headers, people think the long ball must be back. We have probably hit the same amount of long balls with me up front as with anyone else. It doesn’t annoy me. It is just stupid. It is people not knowing the game.
“It has to be [scoring] a flying header that gives me most pleasure, but I am not just about that. I have a bit of everything: I can defend, I can attack, I’m good on the floor, I’m good in the air. People think if you’re tall and win headers, that’s all you are. That is my strength and you use your strength, but that doesn’t take away from what you can do on the floor. People don’t see that. They only see height.”
That, certainly, is all that Rodgers saw. Carroll returns to Anfield this afternoon not angry, not vengeful, but simply determined to open his eyes.
Exclusive Rory Smith meets Andy Carroll, who returns to Anfield today for the first time since the Liverpool manager sold him to West Ham
Andy Carroll does not miss a beat. He has been asked to provide an illustration of how he knew, in the summer of 2012, that his Liverpool career was over, to describe precisely what it was that convinced him he and Brendan Rodgers could never work together. Straightaway, he accuses the Liverpool manager of lying.
“With Brendan Rodgers, there was a lot going on,” he says. From experience, it is safe to say that as an interviewee, Carroll does not do artifice and he does not do euphemism. He is markedly calm and casual as he describes his dark, final days at Liverpool.
“What he was saying to me and what was actually happening [were different things]. He was telling me one thing to my face, then I’d leave the training ground and he would ring me and tell me a completely different thing.
“He would say: ‘You’re going to play every week, you’re going to play every game up front with [Luis] Suárez’. I’d leave and get home and he would ring me and say: ‘Fulham and West Ham want you and I think it’s best you should go.’ I had just had a conversation with him ten minutes ago. So I would go back and see him and he would say the opposite again.
“It was the same thing round and round and round. On phone calls, it was: ‘I think you should go.’ To my face it was: ‘You’ll start every week’. It was mixed messages. He was messing with my head. I lost respect for him, to be honest.
“Another example: I went to Hearts for the [Europa League qualifier]. I got up there. He said I was starting. I woke up in the morning and he came in and said: ‘I think you’ve got a hamstring problem, you’re not going to start.’ I said my hamstring was fine. He said I’d be on the bench. I got to the ground and I wasn’t even on the bench. I was the only one missing out.
“It was just messing me about. I was angry. I knew it was time to go. I thought I just want to play football. I didn’t need this. Under Brendan I knew I was never going to play, with what he was saying to me.
“If he had said straightaway I wasn’t going to play, I’d have said fair enough, you’re a new manager, it’s your decision. You didn’t sign me, fair enough. He did it to a few other players, too, players who are not there now. I didn’t need to speak to anyone about it. I just knew it was a breakdown. If the manager is treating me like this, [I thought] there is no reason for me to be at Liverpool.”
Two and a half years on, Carroll returns to Anfield this afternoon as a West Ham player. Thanks to a combination of injuries and the terms of his initial loan move to Upton Park, it will be the first time he has been back to the club who, in 2011, made him the most expensive English player in history.
The accusations regarding his treatment by Rodgers have not been substantiated by the Northern Irishman. For Carroll, enough water has passed under the bridge for the 26-year-old to recount his dealings with his former manager with no real rancour. There is similarly no trace of bitterness in his voice as he discusses his feelings towards Liverpool as a whole. He is at his happiest now, he says, working under Sam Allardyce for a West Ham team he feels “is only going up”. He is over his injuries. He is allowing his thoughts, just a little, to drift towards further international recognition. Carroll is in a good place.
He does not give the impression, particularly, that he would join the modern fad of refraining from celebrating should he score against his former employers, but equally does not seem to have a burning desire for revenge. Returning to Liverpool, he says, is not the emotional drain that going back to Newcastle for the first time was.
“That was tough,” he says. “I grew up there, I had a season ticket there, I supported them for years and still do now. It was hard to hear your own fans getting on your back. I knew I would get some from the Newcastle fans. That was disappointing. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong, but obviously it’s something. There are some emotions with Liverpool, but it is not a team I grew up with. It was just a team I was at for a short time and I have moved on.”
His prime emotion when he thinks back to his time at Anfield, he says, is “more frustration than regret”. It may surprise him that there will be plenty in attendance today who share that view, and not simply because of the chronic shyness in front of goal of Rodgers’ side.
Carroll’s debut was a long time in coming. He had signed — on that bizarre night when Fernando Torres went to Chelsea — with an injury, and it was not until early March that he was ready to appear.
The intervening weeks had brought about a torrent of bafflement and mirth that the club’s American owners had sanctioned such a vast outlay on such a raw talent.
He first appeared as a substitute during a game against Manchester United. It was the perfect setting, really. Dirk Kuyt had scored a hat-trick but Suárez had been the star, teeing up all three, tormenting the hated enemy. The game was won. The mood was buoyant. Anfield was crowing. Then Carroll, the £35 million man, bounded on to the field. His first involvement was to contest a header from a Pepe Reina goal kick. He won it, emphatically. The sight was cheered as loudly as a goal.
“I can remember coming on and winning my first header,” he says. “The noise all kicked off. But I never really got a grip on being fit. The frustration is that I could not get myself going. I went there injured, I was rushing myself back to be fit because I wanted to play and they were rushing me back, too. That meant I would play one game, then miss two, then play another and so on. Then I’d be out and it was a snowball effect.”
Then, of course, out went Kenny Dalglish — who referred to him, affectionately, as “Big Andy” — and in came Rodgers, very much a Carroll-sceptic. The Northern Irishman’s belief, it seemed, was that his powerhouse centre forward suited only one type of game. He was a target man, a long-ball magnet, a heavyweight in a bantam world. Rodgers decided that his face did not fit.
This is the only point where Carroll, reclining in his seat at West Ham’s training ground, grows agitated. He has heard this accusation too many times and, though he insists that he is “not bothered by other people’s opinions,” it clearly strikes a nerve. Not least, perhaps, because it haunts him even now.
When Sam Allardyce’s side started the season playing quick, incisive football with Diafra Sakho and Enner Valencia up front — thanks to Carroll’s injury — there was a worry around Upton Park that, once the striker returned, all that progress would be lost, that West Ham would revert to a less sophisticated style.
“We play in exactly the same way,” Carroll says. “I know we do, because the training is exactly the same, the way we set up. It is just perception. Because I am tall and win headers, people think the long ball must be back. We have probably hit the same amount of long balls with me up front as with anyone else. It doesn’t annoy me. It is just stupid. It is people not knowing the game.
“It has to be [scoring] a flying header that gives me most pleasure, but I am not just about that. I have a bit of everything: I can defend, I can attack, I’m good on the floor, I’m good in the air. People think if you’re tall and win headers, that’s all you are. That is my strength and you use your strength, but that doesn’t take away from what you can do on the floor. People don’t see that. They only see height.”
That, certainly, is all that Rodgers saw. Carroll returns to Anfield this afternoon not angry, not vengeful, but simply determined to open his eyes.
Deffo.
I don't buy Rory Smith's view that it was purely Rodgers' personal views which signalled the beginning of the end for Carroll at LFC. Carroll let Kenny down some time before Rodgers arrived at the club. Now that may simply be a reflection of the fact that Carroll was still young, but IMO that's no reason to airbrush his own part in his failure to make it at LFC out of the picture, even in an article like this.
All that said, if even half of what Carroll says is true it doesn't speak well of Rodgers. I'm glad such behaviour on his part looks like being a thing of the past. It needs to stay that way.
All that said, if even half of what Carroll says is true it doesn't speak well of Rodgers. I'm glad such behaviour on his part looks like being a thing of the past. It needs to stay that way.
Melissa Reddy @MelissaReddy_ Follow
100 Premier League games in charge of #LFC for Brendan Rodgers: 184 points. Only Reds boss to secure more in his century: Rafa Benitez, 186
6:17 PM - 9 Feb 2015
Head to head after 100 league games:
Manager: W D L F A Pts Finish
Benitez: 56 18 26 146 82 186 5,3,3
Rodgers: 53 25 22 205 120 184 7,2,?
Of course, when it comes to cups and cup finals, Benitez wins hands-down. Where the league is concerned though, I didn't know they were so close.
100 Premier League games in charge of #LFC for Brendan Rodgers: 184 points. Only Reds boss to secure more in his century: Rafa Benitez, 186
6:17 PM - 9 Feb 2015
Head to head after 100 league games:
Manager: W D L F A Pts Finish
Benitez: 56 18 26 146 82 186 5,3,3
Rodgers: 53 25 22 205 120 184 7,2,?
Of course, when it comes to cups and cup finals, Benitez wins hands-down. Where the league is concerned though, I didn't know they were so close.
Bumping this because it has more numbers. #FlexMyFactMuscles
More numbers, more similarities:
# P W D L GF GA GD Pts
03-04: 4 38 16 12 10 55 37 18 60 (Houllier)
04-05: 5 38 17 7 14 52 41 11 58 (Benitez: -2)
05-06: 3 38 25 7 6 57 25 32 82 (Benitez: +24)
06-07: 3 24 14 4 6 37 16 21 46 (Benitez: 100th league game; -36)
Ended up:
06-07: 3 38 20 8 10 57 27 30 68 (Benitez: -14)
# P W D L GF GA GD Pts
11-12: 8 38 14 10 14 47 40 7 52 (Kenny)
12-13: 7 38 16 13 9 71 43 28 61 (Rodgers: +9)
13-14: 2 38 26 6 6 101 50 51 84 (Rodgers: +23)
14-15: 7 24 11 6 7 33 27 6 39 (Rodgers: 100th league game; -45)
We're not perfect, far from it and lose at Southampton then at home to City, questions will be asked again but I fucking love "Brendan Rodgers Liverpool" . The football we play under this man is refreshingly positive and eye catching. It really is fun being a Liverpool fan, and without discrediting the fine service and unforgettable memories Houllier and Rafa gave us...we haven't always been able to say that for some 15-16 years.
We were a mess from September to December, a shambles, and despite some valid excuses he could point to for such a downturn, there's no doubt Brendan got a lot wrong and he looked a broken man at times...but he's turned it around and for that he deserves a great deal of credit because he held his nerve, tweaked a few things and now we're reaping the rewards.
Unfortunately I think we might miss out on top 4(although that's far from certain), but hopefully we can win a Cup and look forward to a bright future with Rodgers at the helm. I've no doubt he's the right man to take us forward.
One Brendan Rodgers!
We were a mess from September to December, a shambles, and despite some valid excuses he could point to for such a downturn, there's no doubt Brendan got a lot wrong and he looked a broken man at times...but he's turned it around and for that he deserves a great deal of credit because he held his nerve, tweaked a few things and now we're reaping the rewards.
Unfortunately I think we might miss out on top 4(although that's far from certain), but hopefully we can win a Cup and look forward to a bright future with Rodgers at the helm. I've no doubt he's the right man to take us forward.
One Brendan Rodgers!
Well this is it, anyone asking for a change at the first time of trouble is just a typical modern, trigger happy, microwave generation fan. He did brilliantly last year, we play exciting football, he has a crop of promising young players, what's there not to be positive about? Ok, so we were a soft touch defensively and still can be occasionally, but by and large he's addressed our one major flaw quite admirably, avoiding the egotistical, stubborn trappings of his predecessors.
I think he's brilliant.
I think he's brilliant.
Temet nosce.
I've always been pretty positive about Rodgers - but he does have flaws.
The biggest one, I think, is probably the one that reared it's head at the start of the season - changing tactics, formations and lineups almost every game - looked like he was trying to be too clever.
It was said at the time - get a consistent lineup playing a certain formation consistently using consistent tactics and we'd be better.
I'm glad he started doing that - because it's turning our season around.
Obviously I'm over-simplifying, there where other issues - new players, injuries, loss of form to key players - but he has to take on board the things the last few months should have taught him.
If he does - then good - future should be exciting.
If he doesn't - then it's probably another false dawn.
Still not convinced by some of our defending though.
The biggest one, I think, is probably the one that reared it's head at the start of the season - changing tactics, formations and lineups almost every game - looked like he was trying to be too clever.
It was said at the time - get a consistent lineup playing a certain formation consistently using consistent tactics and we'd be better.
I'm glad he started doing that - because it's turning our season around.
Obviously I'm over-simplifying, there where other issues - new players, injuries, loss of form to key players - but he has to take on board the things the last few months should have taught him.
If he does - then good - future should be exciting.
If he doesn't - then it's probably another false dawn.
Still not convinced by some of our defending though.
I think it took a long time to turn this season around. I also think that in too many early season games we started slowly and the games were drab. However, all this time I am aware that Rodgers is a very young manager who has had Liverpool playing scintillating football, that he will make mistakes - just let's see signs that he learns from them. For that reason it is extremely satisfying to see the turnaround. He's got us going again. I think 4th is unlikely, but I think our manager is the best man for the job.
Agreed
Rodgers could really do with winning a trophy this year.
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