I was reminded of two things while I was reading about the deal in the paper today. The first is an old joke about owning a football club. How do you make a small profit from owning a football club? Go in with a large one. I wonder just how much capital NESV is truly willing to sink into Liverpool? Offloading their most valuable asset while replacing it with two players possessing half a season's worth of first team Premier League experience between them and making a loss of £8m is all well and good. It won't get them to fourth place this season though, meaning they will miss that money train again. I'm no expert, but from a purely financial perspective it doesn't seem worth it.
The other thing I'm reminded of is something that Arsene Wenger said a while back. I'm far too lazy to search out the exact quote, but he opined that the reason he generally avoided buying English players is because they are grossly overpriced. Can you guess where I'm going with this? Even if Andy Carroll turns out to be the new Alan Shearer as he is so breathlessly compared, the reported £35m is flatly ridiculous for a player of questionable consistency with character concerns. I'll give them this though - the hype machine has spit out that he is a direct replacement for Fernando Torres. Considering Carroll hasn't played for 35 days and counting it seems they've succeeded in trading one sicknote player for another.
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