Andy Carroll completed a move to Liverpool from Newcastle for £35m yesterday. It was the knock-on effect of the deal which saw Fernando Torres move from Liverpool to Chelsea for a fee of £50m. The fact that Andy Carroll was effectively forced to move by the obscene amount of money offered (as is explained below) says a lot about the business of modern football.
On the face of it, that amount of money for a 21 year old with (relatively) limited experience of top flight football is unbelievable. And what makes the story even more unbelievable is the fact that Carroll himself has come out and said that he himself didn't want to leave the club. This could easily be dismissed as him trying to save face having left the club but a conversation has emerged (which can be found in the comments section of the article here, thanks to @bpfootball and @neilsherwin) between Carroll and the editor of the ToonTalk fanzine Steve Wraith which seems to suggest otherwise. On Sunday afternoon Carroll says he's going nowhere but not much more than 24 hours later he's been persuaded to put in a transfer request and is on his way to Liverpool's Melwood training complex to put pen to paper on what is no doubt a very lucrative contract. Andy Carroll's boyhood dream of being the next legendary Newcastle no.9 has had to make way for the cold hard cash being offered.
As I said earlier, Liverpool were in a position to flash the cash at Newcastle because they had received a ridiculous offer of £50m for Torres. Chelsea are in a position to make bids of this scale because of their billionaire owner covering the huge losses that they accrue yearly, recorded at £70.9m for the 2009-10 season. The distortion of the market by billionaire-owned clubs is remarkable (as Arseblog wrote today) but the more depressing aspect of this deal is that Torres doesn't seem to fit into the tactical setup at Stamford Bridge. Pundits tipping Chelsea to return to the 4-4-2 diamond (which failed under Scolari because it stifled Lampard and made marking their fullbacks a very straightforward way of negating them offensively) seem to have very short memories indeed. Torres is a hugely talented player and will almost definitely become integral in the Chelsea team if/when Drogba leaves (he has stated his desire to return to Marseille in the past) but making the move now reeks of panic from the owner rather than a considered, logical addition to the squad (the signing of David Luiz).
It stands out that the two big clubs not to have made meaningful moves in the January transfer window have the league's longest-serving managers. It seems to me that the best approach toward achieving sustained success is having long-term plans and not getting involved in last-minute panic-buying (I'm looking at you Mr. Redknapp). The billionaire owners would do well to take note of this and perhaps the next local-lad-come-good can have a successful career with their boyhood club without money being the decisive influence.
Still, at least the tax income from all these deals will help pay off our national debt, won't it?
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