Finding Andy Carroll’s Role

By: Noel | September 26th, 2011

Afterwards, opinions ranged from Andy Carroll having finally shown something of his worth as more than a target for long clearances to him having done nothing in particular to rewrite the gargantuan failure narrative he’s been saddled with since arriving at Liverpool for £35M in January. Sometimes those wildly divergent opinions even came from the same pundit. Either way, in retrospect, the most interesting aspect of Carroll’s game against Wolverhampton on Saturday—his best of the season from whichever angle one might come at it from—might not have been the actual performance so much as the way the rest of the squad performed around him and the role he was asked to play.

A point of contention for some has been that it’s impossible to properly judge Carroll when he’s provided with neither quality service or support. Whether one saw the Geordie giant as a traditional targetman or raw talent to be refined, early in the season his inclusion more often than not saw only lofted balls to his head from defenders and deep lying midfielders without any support for him to work with if hold-up play was the intention. Instead of either asking him to play with the ball at his feet or giving him the support he would have received at Newcastle, he was left in situations where he needed to win the aerial battle—often against multiple defenders—bring the ball down under control, and then beat opponents without a teammate in sight.

It was an uncomfortable situation that suggested a serious disconnect somewhere in the playing and coaching staff, as often the team didn’t appear to take a coherent approach with Carroll on the pitch. For all the talk that he wasn’t living up to his pricetag—or even to what would be expected of him regardless of pricetag—the reality was that the biggest problem lay in his teammates resorting to route one passes without giving him route one support. The biggest problem was the when he played, nobody around him seemed to quite know what to do, while in all of this expectation may have coloured the impressions taken away from a surprisingly limited data set: Wolves on Saturday was only the second full opportunity to watch Andy Carroll play alongside Luis Suarez in a strike pairing with a coherent, planned approach.

*

At times this season there has been a suggestion that Kenny Dalglish’s preferred approach involves Luis Suarez leading the line, with either Andy Carroll or another player in support. It’s how the pair started out against Tottenham, though with Spurs rampant and an ineffective Charlie Adam quickly reducing the side to ten men any tactical intent quickly went out the window. It’s also how the duo set up when they had forty minutes together against Exeter City in the League Cup after Raul Meireles went off injured, and it’s how they began a rather disappointing showing in the season opener versus Sunderland.

And that opener against Sunderland was a prefect example of the obvious disconnect between the players on the pitch, the coaching staff, and anything like a coherent gameplan for Andy Carroll: The player spent most of his time in a more reserved role behind the main striker (as seen above) but with many of his teammates resorting to agrarian passes to his head that did nothing aside from making the entire side look disjointed while grumbles about Carroll being a failure at Liverpool grew.

Until Saturday’s match against Wolves, however, most of Carroll’s time since then has been spent either without Suarez on the pitch as the most advanced striker as against Arsenal (left) or coming on as a substitute and clear Plan B. Despite being well over a month into the new season, Wolverhampton provided only the second chance to come away with a reasonable idea of how Kenny Dalglish sees Carroll fitting into the side over the rest of the season, and even if Saturday’s match was far from perfect and did nothing to answer lingering questions about the effectiveness of some of the other new signings, it was at least a more coherent display that sought to integrate Andy Carroll into the action instead of leaving him to stick out awkwardly.

*

Just as Saturday’s match would seem to give some hint at Carroll’s long term role with the side as something other than a traditional number nine, however, and even on the back of by far his strongest showing of the season, it also casts further doubt on his long-term prospects. Especially if Steven Gerrard can stay healthy, since despite talk of Gerrard coming in to replace somebody in midfield, early returns would seem to instead have Gerrard and Carroll competing for the same—or at least a similar—role.

Since Kenny Dalglish arrived at Liverpool in January, no player has spent more time on the pitch than Lucas Leiva as the club’s only established defensive midfielder, while early signs are that new arrival Charlie Adam is a project for the manager and quite nearly undroppable despite the doubts of many. More to the point, in Gerrard’s two substitute appearances since returning from injury it appears he won’t be in the running against either Adam or Lucas for playing time most weeks, as on both occasions Liverpool’s midfield duo—Adam and Lucas against Wolves in the league and Spearing and Lucas against Brighton in the League Cup—remained intact, with Gerrard coming on to replace an established striker and taking up the old free role he played to such great effect under Rafa Benitez with Carroll then pushed further up the pitch (as seen in the average position maps against Wolverhampton below).

Wolves did seem to provide a clear sign of how Dalglish sees Andy Carroll fitting in alongside Luis Suarez and the rest of the Liverpool squad, and it showed some very promising signs as to what people might be able to expect from Carroll in such a role as he develops. But there’s also a clear suggestion that despite his best performance of the season, when everybody is healthy it is Carroll more often than not who will soon find himself on the outside looking in in favour of Charlie Adam and a three man midfield, with Gerrard moving back into his old role supporting the striker and Suarez a lock up front. For Carroll it hardly seems a just reward for taking the first steps towards getting the critics off his back, but it does seem to be where Dalglish is heading.

Some Related Liverpool Posts:

Category: Premier League, Team News

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Latortillablanca

rly nice, objective piece from noel.

my only bone of contention would be the idea that somehow liverpool wud oust either carroll or kuyt in favor of hendo on the right with a fit and firing steven in the center... i can understand having henderson's young legs in the game to cover the lack of steven's box-to-box game, but i have to imagine that the first choice attacking 4 would be:

-steven, kuyt/carroll, suarez, downing

and depending on whether carroll or kuyt is playing, suarez starts either up top, behind the striker with stevie out right, or he stays in the middle with an inverted wing formation of downing and suarez, and dirk or andy up top.

the other option with steven is to drop charlie and go with an attacking foursome of:

-carroll, suarez, kuyt, downing

kenny's proven to be more apt to tinkering than i wudve ever thought - certain subs an tactical adjustments are made for particular games - but we'll at least have a good idea of who the strongest 11 is over the next month or so; however, the truly encouraging thing is the amount of options a fit captain gives our midfield and attack... feeling pretty good about the medium term future, now we just gotta get through the next couple games...
Geoff Twentyman

The systems we’ve seen are 4-4-2/4-2-2-2/4-3-3/4-5-1/4-2-3-1 hybrid depending on the personnel and the personnel we use should benefit the system.

I’ll try and clarify what ‘s in my head on how we should set up:

4-4-2 – Lucas & Gerrard sitting deep playing ostensibly through the two wingers needed who are looking to cut back to Suarez dropping deep and Gerrard bombing forward, or hitting good crosses for Carroll.
We miss an out and out right winger for this set up but with the existing squad my team would be:

----------------------Reina---------------------
Johnson----Carragher---Agger------Enrique
----------Lucas----------Gerrard---
Kuyt-----------------------------------Downing
-------------------------Suarez------------------
-----------Carroll-------------------------------

4-2-2-2 – Width needed from full backs. Deep lying possession based centre midfielders adaptable attacking midfielders. Creator and poacher up front. Adam hasn’t convinced me yet, and whilst Henderson hasn’t either, I do prefer his possession based game.

----------------------Reina---------------------
Johnson----Carragher---Agger------Enrique
----------Lucas----------Hendo---
-----Gerrard---------------------------Downing
-------------------------Suarez------------------
------------------Kuyt----------------------------

4-3-3 – Width needed from full backs. Disciplined possession based centre midfielders & hardworking tenancious attackers. A slight tweak to the 4-2-2-2 removes width and installs more forward positioning.

----------------------Reina---------------------
Johnson----Carragher---Agger------Enrique
----------------------Lucas---------------------
-----Gerrard-------------------Hendo------
-----------------------------------------------
---------Kuyt------ Suarez ----Bellamy----

4-5-1 – Defensive –Compact centre midfield, with good passing range looking for quick counter attacks on the wings. Hardworking centre forward.

----------------------Reina---------------------
Johnson----Carragher---Agger------Enrique
----------------------Lucas---------------------
--------Gerrard---------------Adam------------
Bellamy -------------------------------Downing
--------- ------------Kuyt------------------ ---- -

4-2-3-1 – Passer, destroyer, creator in centre midfield. Dynamic wide men comfortable operating narrow. Mobile forward playing a high line. Lucas and Adam not as fearsome as Masch and Alonso, Suarez compares to Torres. Kuyt/Bellamy provide different options on the right, and Downing is an improvement on the left.

----------------------Reina---------------------
Johnson----Carragher---Agger------Enrique
-----------------Lucas-----Adam---------------
Bellamy --------- Gerrard --------------Downing
--------- ------------Suarez------------------ ---- -

In summary, from his offerings so far, for me he would benefit from width on both side, which alludes to a 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1. He’s certainly an option in all of the other formations of course, but needs to settle in and kick on.
Latortillablanca

ur first lineup i hope to see starting against man utd... cept id be fine with kells in for johnson.
justin

Just to put it up in the air, if we were to look at how Crouchie did for us in the past, how did he fit in? It sure took him awhile but he did as well didn't he?

I mean, if Crouchie could do a fair job for us back then when we were passing pretty well under Rafa, I'm fairly certain Carroll can eventually do a better job?

Carroll's frame certainly does him no favours when he looks like he's just lumbering around when in fact the amount of ground he covers in one step is definitely more than some others. That said, it was only in the last game that his movement seemed to show more urgency and while I don't really think it's because he's "running faster" its more likely that his brain is thinking up movements quicker than he used to.
LFC92

Good that someone has finally seen his worth - however I feel that your main point (i.e, Gerrard for Carroll) is something of a big assumption to make.

We've seen about 25-30 minutes of Gerrard over two games, in both of which he replaced Suarez. Although this suggests that he either forces Carroll up the pitch or Suarez off it, I feel that these two cameos by Gerrard are somewhat badly timed in terms of making an assessment of his long term role. Suarez has been played alot this campaign and the manager has already come out and said he will need to be careful in using him. In addition, Gerrard has needed minutes to build up match fitness in order to return to the side in a full 90 minutes of football. It is these two factors (as well as both players ability to play 'in the hole') that make the swap ideal, not Carroll's contributions to the side throughout 90 minutes I feel.
CheekyFellow

All this animosity towards our own players, I guess we should bring back Poulsen and JC, we obviously liked them more!
Noel

I thought we'd done a fairly good job around here of making it clear our biggest problem with Carroll isn't Carroll, it's how the rest of the team has so far played around him, and that the biggest problem with Jordan Henderson is that he's young and doesn't seem ready to be a regular starter at Liverpool yet—but that he could grow into something special. Meanwhile we've been nothing but glowing about Downing and Enrique.

I don't think any of that's especially negative—or at least not mindlessly so.
Nic

Think cheekyfellow might be talking about *dum, dum, dum* Adam

2 goals [ok, maybe not Saturdays, so 1] :), as of the end of Aug - 2 assists, 6 chances created also one of the top players for distances ran during games.

I guess stats can say anything :)
Jake_LFC

Not once (that I've seen) has his contribution to the creation of scoring chances been doubted on this site. The issue is that as a central midfielder, it is equally if not far more crucial to be very solid in the keeping of possession, tracking back, and generally having a presence on the field, and it is in these areas that Adam has been found wanting thus far.
CheekyFellow

Should have made it clear, my comments weren't directed to the author of the article ;), or to most of the level headed people here. I did, however, read comments on soccernet. I then immediately came here. Perhaps I commented on the wrong board?
Noel

No worries, though I doubt the crazies on Soccernet/Bleacher Report/Caught Offside have enough self-awareness to realise how ridiculous they sound—rather like a room full of people like our friend with three PHDs who visited earlier.
etipok

i think that there is a huge amount of pressure being put on the poor lad. if we look at some other players at other clubs eg anderson at utd, bought for a substantial fee yet after several years is only just becoming a first team fixture despite centre mid probably being utds weakest part of the team over the last few seasons. carroll is a young lad that needs to develop his game but he has the attributes to potentially terrorise defences. ive not been particularly impressed with some of our signings but my gut feeling is over time carroll will become an important player for us, i hope im right because he could be brilliant.
Suarez from the car park...

Have to say, I've no idea what KK will do for Everton and ManUre.

If he sticks with his current preferences and it doesnt work well across the park then he'll be forced to change it for ManUre.

On the other hand, perhaps he will revert to the old faithfuls for these 2 games having deliberately used the opening games to bed in the newbies - and it remains very much a work in progress.

Confused.com
RwandanRed

Don't mean to sound too negative but even Crouch knew how to control a ball! Thanks again Noel much as i understood next to nothing from those maps! Love from Rwanda. YNWA.
Bill

As far away from Anfield as possible.
Purify_the_body

I'm not sure why Adam would be "quite nearly undroppable", unless you are describing Kenny's feelings rather than football reality. It makes plenty of sense to drop a slow, poor-tackling player who is out of position and dead on his feet after ~60 mins for a younger, more aggressive player who excelled at that same position during our best run of 2011.

Carroll will always attract more headlines and attention, but Adam is the bigger problem for this evolving Liverpool team. He and Henderson are the chief liabilities in our midfield, but Henderson is in a less important position.
Purify_the_body

I forgot to add: Adam is the 2nd most carded Premier League player since the beginning of last season. Holloway knew he couldn't tackle to save his life and put 2 other DMs next to him to do the dirty work. Why don't Kenny & Steve?
JPR

There won't be any hiding out for the next two games. Everton looked pretty good in their loss to City over the weekend. United are looking like world beaters. Not sure we're quite ready for them, considering we're still somewhat in tinkering mode. Guessing Kuyt to start against Everton and United. Stevie may be ready for United. We will need "The Machine" for both games. We will learn a lot about the individual and collective "heart" of the guys here.
Red2death

Aside from his attacking contribution, Kuyt will man-mark anyone out of the game. Guaranteed less than 2 seconds on the ball before he's up in your face and forcing a backpass.

Kuyt needs to start, and Hendo can be brought on once the game is safe, not the other way round.
Jmp999

Kuyt definitely. And I would go with wee Jay too. Especially against United. We need a guy who can tackle and close down space, as a priority. Not leave 3 or 4 mids 15 yards each to make decisions, like Spuds. Lucas can't cover all of them.
Latortillablanca

pretty big ask for wee jay to from ridin pine all year to starting in two of the biggest games of our season... nah, like him or love him, adam's the man.
JPR

I DO like him. Don't think I'm ever gonna love him. My money would still be on wee Jay. Don't expect KK to do it. He'll stick with Charlie, hope for the best and that he can up his game.
Red2death

Utd will be an interesting game. For all our development on the flanks, they're still stronger down the wings than we are. But they're soft in the centre. Gerrard and Suarez will thrive. And Maxi could probably fit in well there too, with Lucas providing central cover. Kuyt, Kelly, Downing and Enrique will have to do a massive job stopping up the wings though - this time more defensive than anything.
Latortillablanca

im jus hopin their injuries continue to pile up and that we roll in there with a clean bill of health... if they start hittin us hard on those wings its game over - we gotta stop that ish before it starts. united lets you play football, and we gotta take full advantage of that and impose possession... that said, adam/stevie make or break that game depending on which one plays next to lucas.
Purify_the_body

Agree. Playing Henderson, Adam, Carroll and Downing at the same times makes us very soft. That's fine for Bolton, but not Everton.

Reina
Kelly Carra Skrtel Enrique
Lucas Spearing
Kuyt Downing
Suarez Bellamy
JPR

Like it. The bulldog tenacity of Spearing. Just what we need in the center of the park. The box to box, heart and balls on your sleeve running, tackling, tracking, protecting Dirkster. Kelly can't be left on an Island, especially against United. The I'll crack you in the head if I can't beat your ass tenacity of Bellers. It's a derby! No softies here.
Kiwiscouser

I am still not convinced on hendo. carroll shows promise though if only he can play well every week
Suarez from the car park...

we can but hope.
3PHDs

Comment deleted for being offensive, unoriginal, and having a user name that needlessly brags about advanced degrees.

Huzzah for blocking two users in two weeks!

Love, Ed
lfc4eternity

If this person has 3 PHD's, the education system is in a worse state than I thought possible!
Joel

You stay classy, San Diego.
lfc4eternity

A Whales vagina indeed. (PHD obviously)
ShedYourYellow

Would it be accurate to call Ed a mod-troll of the most sublime degree?
mardia

You know, I generally would have harsh words for such obnoxious, tired, homophobic crap such as this, but I'm actually more concerned with side-eying anyone who'd "like" this nonsense.
Theo Griffin

you already posted this. Learn to type new sentences please.
Noel

I was going to be annoyed, but then I browsed through your Disqus commenting history and now I think I love you:

"You sound life Rafa. Empty vessel makes the most noise. The thing is I'm ahead of my time."

"Sack Dalglish and Comolli for giving crap players Lucas and Kuyt new contracts!"

"Remember there is only one Einstein, but many with mediocre brains - the rest of you."

Sue is so August; all hail 3PHDs!
Nic

Gutted i missed it before moderation, can we have it back just to laugh about!?

"Sue is so August" :D LMAO
Red2death

Wasn't Carroll bought with the intention to give us a big threat in the box, and Adam (at least in part) with the idea that he's the best provider of floated balls to make use of that? Why then would it be case of one or the other... They're two parts of the same setup.
And of course with regards to Carroll's best display of the season, I think it's true we did witness that against Wolves. Though as a corollary, Suarez can make anyone look like a perfect partner. So far Carroll's just looked like an upgraded Peter Crouch.

That said, any long term solution should be tailored towards our #9 rather than #7, since we all know Suarez is only for now...
Suarez from the car park...

Carroll's best game was against Citeh last season. Intelligent service from the likes of Meireles.
Guest

Good post on the wonderful young striker bestowed upon us by our benevolent benefactor, Mr. Abramovich! Here's to hoping he'll have the opportunities to succeed for us for years to come.

However, it's worth stating that nothing in the above post answers the most important question in my life right now: After acquiring FIFA 12 first thing tomorrow, do I sell Carroll to finance my purchase of Eden Hazard?
Theo Griffin

The best part of Fifa11 was making a fresh manager mode and selling all the Hodgy's (fire sale style) and using the proceeding 60-80Mil to revamp the squad.
Guest

I'm impressed you were able to get that much (unless you sold Torres, in which case I'm not surprised you got that much).
Theo Griffin

The problem now is that there is hardly any fat left to cut. Unless you want to sell maxi, Of course I will still have to cancel the loan contract of Joe Cole only to transfer list him...
Guest

Hey, don't forget our friend Alberto!
NotTooXabi

Erm, Bingo?

A fascinating, if muddled picture painted here. There's decent logic behind the "early bird" assessment that it might be Carroll who loses out when Gerrard is fully fit. But with the uncertainty on the right (we're uncertain of Henderson, Kenny uncertain of Kuyt), might we see that little hybrid 2-2 up top (Carroll/Suarez supported by Downing/Gerrard)?

Granted, I'm saying that having to cede the point about Adam's "locked in" status which sort of gives me the red ass. Thanks, Noel.
Noel

Given Dalglish has mainly stuck with variations on a theme with the 4222/4231/433 I'd bet against it, though I suppose he could change things up and play Gerrard on the right of a 4222. Like I said, though, I'd bet against that—and even moreso against the 442 diamond that seems a natural fit for the personnel you suggest.