I'd say the club was lacking ambition if we hadn't accepted the deal, limiting ourselves to a stupidly overhyped, glorified battering ram of a striker who, if anything limited our style of play. We can get players a on a different level to AC with that cash. Seriously what is with the clamour for Carroll on here, he's not that good and never will be, he wasn't even the best player in our squad. What tools apart from heading does he really have to make it as a great player? His skill is average, as is his pace, intelligence and finishing. People need to give their heads a shake saying he was going to be a PL great (not specifically you Dave), after scoring 11 goals in one of the worst standard seasons in the league's history, a season where Leon Best has scored a hattrick and a newly promoted club has hit 5+ goals in 3 matches and lets not forget Kevin Nolan already has 10 goals as well. We now have a great chance to build a good footballing side with some higher level players, with this money we can get 6/7 Ben Afra/Tiote like signings ffs, If Andy Carroll had stayed we'd have been confined to alot of boring route 1 stuff and i wouldn't want a team to be built around him for long as he can only take you to a certain level as aplayer. Onwards and upwards i say.
Good luck with that.
Jesus H. Christ.