TRon

Doesn't the club have any other income to fund wages other than transfer fees? Doesn't that come out of gate money and tv cash?

Obviously outside of England people will think it's a crazy transfer fee. Carroll's real value is in the premier league, I don't think he would be effective in European leagues where the ball is kept on the deck and the pace is a lot slower.

By thte looks of it we would have had to sell somebody else to pay Carrolls wages. Only clubs in Europe can afford to pay 80k/week to a single player. Probably why Carroll didn't want to wait until the summer to re-negotiate his contract as he might have had doubts we would clinch a spot.

What utter shite.

We should have got him to share digs with Shola in retrospect. He'd have probably ended up paying us to keep him here.

Let's not kid ourselves, most clubs are run as businesses these days and those that aren't are in danger of going through what we did after Hall and Shepherd sold up and took all the money with them and left us with the debt. Villa have had to reign in the spending after failing to get a CL spot and Liverpool have only been bailed out of serious shit by Hicks and Gillette paying for their folly. But we won't be able to absorb the loss of Carroll without strengthening the squad significantly across all areas. Any business needs a product worth paying for and if Ashley wants to sell season tickets he will have to invest. With the Carroll sale (along with N'Zogbia, Milner, Given etc) there is more than enough money to do so.

I don't know about anyone else, but I was assuming after a season in the premier if we stay up, we would have some money to spend in the summer. Without selling Carroll.

Taking the bigger picture into consideration if we want to move on from a club perspective we need to look to sign better players than Nolan. Players that Liverpool want in their team not Bolton rejects who don't feel this is the club for our best players.

I agree for what it's worth. However there's still a large number of people (including Carroll & Nolan clearly), who are taken in by them. FFS that's the problem in the first place! Carroll's a thick lad if we're being kind and Nolan could have used his influence as a Newcastle captain instead of a Liverpool fan. What makes it worse Liverpool wouldn't touch the fat lard arse with a barge pole themselves.

Would Harry say that about Bale going to Barcelona, Inter etc.? I think he would. Of course he would. So why the witch hunt against Nolan all of a sudden? Ok he's not the manager but still a key figure of the club. He was one of the few people who could have influenced Carroll to stay another year instead of telling him to "go fer it!". Sad state of affairs when our club captain is telling our star player his future is better at another club. I'll go back to the Robson quotes where it's not as if his MANAGER fought to keep him. We were getting £14m for a crock. And here we've got £35m for a young player who's played 4 months regular top-flight football with a history of off-field issues. That's not the point though is it? Nolan is our captain and Carroll's best mate. He should have been telling him this is going to be a better place than Liverpool a year down the line not what a fantastic opportunity it was to play in front of the Kop and "you'll never walk alone" wankfest.

Would Harry say that about Bale going to Barcelona, Inter etc.? I think he would. Of course he would. So why the witch hunt against Nolan all of a sudden? Ok he's not the manager but still a key figure of the club. He was one of the few people who could have influenced Carroll to stay another year instead of telling him to "go fer it!". Sad state of affairs when our club captain is telling our star player his future is better at another club. I'll go back to the Robson quotes where it's not as if his MANAGER fought to keep him. We were getting £14m for a crock. How is the situation even comparable? Robson was being diplomatic but the deal was a great one. If Woodgate had of been fit and healthy over his Newcastle career even double the money wouldn't have been enough.

He was damn good when he was here but he got relegated to second choice once we signed Duff. I got sick of saying how good he was and why we should have given him a more prominent role before he got pissed off and left.

There's a monumental difference between playing for Real Madrid at their best, to playing for Liverpool at their worst. He's got the chance to be the main man who could attempt to return them to their former glory. ooh...maybe we should all be thrilled for Andy and glorious Liverpool.

Would Harry say that about Bale going to Barcelona, Inter etc.? I think he would. Of course he would. So why the witch hunt against Nolan all of a sudden? Ok he's not the manager but still a key figure of the club. He was one of the few people who could have influenced Carroll to stay another year instead of telling him to "go fer it!". Sad state of affairs when our club captain is telling our star player his future is better at another club.

Not really surprised, if Nolan was good enough he'd probably be somewhere else as well. Happy for Carroll to piss off even if it weakens us as long as it strengthens his Liverpool heroes.

We'd never have got a player of Tiote's quality in this country without paying through the nose for it. More like him please.

For those who say Carroll was forced out, can anybody tell me how we've never forced Ameobi out even though we've accepted decent bids for him from at least two clubs in the past? I'm pretty sure it was because Shola really REALLY does want to stay here so there's no chance of shifting him while he's got a contract.

I think £10-15 million buys a quality striker abroad, here you have to pay that for strikers playing in the championship.

If everyone's honest they will admit that our target this season was to stay up. This was always going to be a transitionary period unfortunately it means until we are in a position to invest in the team then our top players will be cherry picked by the teams in Europe. The Carroll sale will at least give us the money to do that now and hopefully it will prevent us losing the likes of Tiote or Enrique. If we don't take this opportunity in the summer they will definitely be off.

Just fuck off you mersey-nary twat.

Think we might have to buy a replacement from abroad. Everyone in England will be raising the price by daft amounts just because of what we got for Carroll. Bothroyd will probably have a £10m price tag for us.

I am really up for this one and I am hoping that the players still here will stand up and be counted. Show the rest of the premier we won't be put down so easily.

Agree Why? He's run off to join a rival for a massive pay rise. Rivals who we could be in a position to replace in Europe if he'd not jumped ship for a few dollars more.

Pardew is growing on me I have to confess. That will all go out the window if he buys badly mind but he's handled himself well in tough conditions IMO.

The other thing is we are not in Europe like Liverpool or Spurs so we don't have the resources to pay daft wages at this time. It's a shame Carroll couldn't wait and be part of the team that got us back into Europe rather than run to Anfield for the money. But understandable.