Parting Ways With Andy Carroll

The Great Andy Carroll Debate of 2013 is on its last legs, with all parties involved making little secret of their interest in finding Andy Carroll a new permanent home. His loan spell at West Ham was largely successful, and while that appears to be a preferable destination for both player and club, there's still a chance that he could end up with his boyhood club, as talk of a move back to Newcastle won't go away. What's increasingly unlikely, however, is that he'll find himself in a Liverpool shirt at the start of the 2013-2014 season.

Talk about fitting into Brendan Rodgers' preferred system is boorish and overhyped; Brendan Rodgers didn't even fit into Brendan Rodgers' preferred system during his first season at Liverpool, and while Carroll seems to invite a style of play that's more direct than Rodgers apparently preferred, there's nothing to indicate that he would have been lacking had he found himself on Merseyside this season.

He didn't, of course, and now the veil has mostly dropped on where his future lies, with Rodgers openly discussingthe monetary aspect of any sort of resolution:

"At the start of the season the whole thing was about going and getting games because he wasn't going to be a starter here. We will talk again with him and the club to see how it all evolves. It's one of those situations where it will probably be resolved a lot quicker than that for both parties.

"The boy is a talent. It's just something we need to assess between now and the end of window. In terms of the money, that's something out of my control. But he's a talent so we will assess the whole situation. The objective at the beginning of the season was for him to go out and play. He's gone away to think of what we spoke about and we will talk again through the weeks."

I'm not necessarily bothered with where he ends up; like a few others, I've developed a strange sort of attachment to Andy Carroll, and while I'm resigned to watching him ply his trade elsewhere, there's a part of me that'll be sad to see him go. I'm a sucker for the triers, and by all accounts he was somebody who wanted to play and succeed for Liverpool. Nevermind the pricetag and all the etceteras that accompanied his arrival, he went about his work with dignity, and Liverpool are always worse off in some ways when they lose somebody like that.

The time to part ways is coming soon enough, so we're left to hope that it leaves both Liverpool and Andy Carroll in a better place to succeed moving forward.

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