English Premier League 2012/13

[Stevo the Villan]

I dare say £5m more or thereabouts would buy you Benteke if he wants to leave us.

Good business West Ham...

 

[Dokaka]

I dare say £5m more or thereabouts would buy you Benteke if he wants to leave us.

Good business West Ham...

We're not going to sign someone who's linked to top clubs. Why would he join us anyway?

The reason why Carroll is a big signing for us is because it's a great player joining a rather **** side. Not to mention he's better than Benteke at what he's asked to do for us, although I'd obviously still rather have Benteke.

The same rules don't apply to the transfer market for all clubs. A player like Carroll is about as good as it gets for a club like us, at least when it comes to safe options.

 

[Stevo the Villan]

I dare say £5m more or thereabouts would buy you Benteke if he wants to leave us.

Good business West Ham...

We're not going to sign someone who's linked to top clubs. Why would he join us anyway?

Sorry, I wasn't trying to say you should buy Benteke. You're righ, he wouldn't go for you.

I was just making the point that if he were to leave us, he'd probably go for not too much more than the £15m you're apparently paying for Carrol.

Which seems mad given the gulf in talent between them. IMO of course.

 

[Dokaka]

I dare say £5m more or thereabouts would buy you Benteke if he wants to leave us.

Good business West Ham...

We're not going to sign someone who's linked to top clubs. Why would he join us anyway?

Sorry, I wasn't trying to say you should buy Benteke. You're righ, he wouldn't go for you.

I was just making the point that if he were to leave us, he'd probably go for not too much more than the £15m you're apparently paying for Carrol.

Which seems mad given the gulf in talent between them. IMO of course.

It does seem mad, I agree. But that's the price you pay for not having the same pull as clubs like Arsenal, Tottenham, Everton and the likes.

Same could be applied to all transfers really. Michu was only £2m, but he'd probably have rejected an offer from a PL club on par with Swansea had it not been managed by Laudrup. I highly doubt £16m would've brought Santi Cazorla to Sunderland.

FWIW I do think that £15m for Carroll is too much, but we're bound by the ridiculous fee Liverpool brought him in for originally. But still, we can afford it, and as it isn't an "either or" scenario, I don't really mind.

 

[leo_ense]

Carroll is not a great player.

 

[Dokaka]

Carroll is not a great player.

Best target man in the league.

 

[Dokaka]

But he can head the ball leo.

An attribute just as important for our strikers as passing is for your CMs

 

[Hunta]

But he can head the ball leo.

 

[GDeep™]

Carroll is better than any CF on our books.

For West Ham, this is close to an insane signing.

 

[Hunta]

But he can head the ball leo.

An attribute just as important for our strikers as passing is for your CMs

Good point actually.

 

[leo_ense]

Carroll is not a great player.

Best target man in the league.

Based on what? Benteke is the best target man in the league by some distance.

 

[Cudareli]

This is ridiculous.

Dokaka you know a lot about football and I have a lot of respect for you as a poster, but once you start talking about anything West Ham related you completely lose it.

We got into a heated argument early in the season when you spoke about Jarvis like he was David ****ing Beckham, now you are pumping Andy Carroll up to be something that he is not. 7 goals and 4 assists in 26 games this season for a team that plays to his style is not a good return, regardless of how you dress it up.

Did you ever rate Emile Heskey when he wasn't scoring but was playing for England?

 

[leo_ense]

Carroll is better than any CF on our books.

For West Ham, this is close to an insane signing.

Carroll isn't better than Giroud. I'm not even a fan of Giroud but come on GDeep.

 

[Dokaka]

Carroll is not a great player.

Best target man in the league.

Based on what? Benteke is the best target man in the league by some distance.

Based on his ability to bring down and hold on to the ball, his presence in the air and his work rate.

Benteke is the superior striker, would rather want him IF we didn't have BFS as our manager. Carroll is about the best we can hope for when it comes to signing a striker that fits our style of play.

Have you even seen Carroll play when he was injury free for us? Laudrup, Adkins, Pardew, Martinez and so on all pretty much called him unplayable. It's literally impossible to counter him specifically - you instead try to stop our runs off the ball.

The difference in our overall play was absolutely astounding going from Carlton Cole to Carroll.

 

[Dokaka]

This is ridiculous.

Dokaka you know a lot about football and I have a lot of respect for you as a poster, but once you start talking about anything West Ham related you completely lose it.

I really don't. I rate Reid and Carroll because I see them play every week and their on an entirely different level than the rest of the squad, including Diamé and Nolan.

I do not rate Noble, Collison, Tomkins, O'Brien, Demel, O'Neil, Vaz Te, Cole, Maiga, C. Cole, Taylor, Collins and so on. They're all ****ing **** to average, some with more potential than others obviously.

We got into a heated argument early in the season when you spoke about Jarvis like he was David ******* Beckham, now you are pumping Andy Carroll up to be something that he is not. 7 goals and 4 assists in 26 games this season for a team that plays to his style is not a good return, regardless of how you dress it up.

Again, for the last time, what I said is that Jarvis had the highest cross completion % in the league playing for Wolves, a stat he has kept up (from what I know, not sure).

I never said he was a brilliant player. I never said he was a massive threat going forward. I said he's a good winger who will provide great crosses for our forwards and midfield to latch on to, which he has done brilliantly towards the end of the season.

I was simply stating fact. Jarvis is a great crosser of the ball, anyone disputing that are idiots, honestly. What people don't seem to understand is that our crosses don't always hit a storming striker who's going to head it in - rarely does that happen. Our crosses hit a target man whose job it is to knock it on/down to a teammate, something Andy Carroll as absolutely brilliant at.

Did you ever rate Emile Heskey when he wasn't scoring but was playing for England?

A bit. I understood the thought at least. Heskey was never that good though.

 

[Cudareli]

This is ridiculous.

Dokaka you know a lot about football and I have a lot of respect for you as a poster, but once you start talking about anything West Ham related you completely lose it.

I really don't. I rate Reid and Carroll because I see them play every week and their on an entirely different level than the rest of the squad, including Diamé and Nolan.

I do not rate Noble, Collison, Tomkins, O'Brien, Demel, O'Neil, Vaz Te, Cole, Maiga, C. Cole, Taylor, Collins and so on. They're all ******* **** to average, some with more potential than others obviously.

We got into a heated argument early in the season when you spoke about Jarvis like he was David ******* Beckham, now you are pumping Andy Carroll up to be something that he is not. 7 goals and 4 assists in 26 games this season for a team that plays to his style is not a good return, regardless of how you dress it up.

Again, for the last time, what I said is that Jarvis had the highest cross completion % in the league playing for Wolves, a stat he has kept up (from what I know, not sure).

I never said he was a brilliant player. I never said he was a massive threat going forward. I said he's a good winger who will provide great crosses for our forwards and midfield to latch on to, which he has done brilliantly towards the end of the season.

I was simply stating fact. Jarvis is a great crosser of the ball, anyone disputing that are idiots, honestly. What people don't seem to understand is that our crosses don't always hit a storming striker who's going to head it in - rarely does that happen. Our crosses hit a target man whose job it is to knock it on/down to a teammate, something Andy Carroll as absolutely brilliant at.

Did you ever rate Emile Heskey when he wasn't scoring but was playing for England?

A bit. I understood the thought at least. Heskey was never that good though.

I just think, for the price you lot paid, there are better options then Carroll.

I suppose it's different for a club like West Ham as the caliber of player you can attract is limited, however reading things like 'the best target man in the league' gets on my nerves.

He's the best target man in the league because West Ham are one of the few teams to play with an outright target man. Who knows how the likes of Lukaku and Benteke, who have the physical presence, would do if they had long balls knocked to them all day.

Let's also not forget that you spent most of this season trying to convince people that West Ham don't play the direct football that people were accusing them of. Now that you've signed Carroll though, you are saying otherwise.

 

[Dokaka]

Let's also not forget that you spent most of this season trying to convince people that West Ham don't play the direct football that people were accusing them of. Now that you've signed Carroll though, you are saying otherwise.

Never said anything like that. Of course we play direct football.

What I said is that there's a difference between a team like Stoke and us. Yeah, we play more long balls than 80% of the league, but we don't just hoof it every time we get the ball.

We've been playing some decent football at home this season. We were all over Chelsea ie, had more possession than them for an entire half.

I'd be an idiot to deny that we play very direct. What I argue is that we do it smart, unlike some other teams like Newcastle and Stoke, the latter who rely solely on set-pieces to score.

 

[ASAP Berg]

I think Allardyce is making a big mistake here, I understand he wants players to fit his game plan, but once teams work out how to negate his tactics and the results turn, if he leaves it will be too hard to change the team because of all these one-dimensional players.

The very least he can do is sign a really creative attacking midfielder to replace Nolan.

And FFS at the likes of West Ham spending 15m on players! Madness Wenger get to spending my man

 

[Jury]

I think Carroll is worth every penny of that £15m, and I can't think of a more effective payer, when on song and up for it, at what he does in the league.

Given a long uninterrupted run of games, and with some service, he'll do great things for West Ham or anyone else who play to his strengths. He's nowhere near the finished article.

 

[Wouterus]

Apparently he could be out until August, meaning that Carroll would miss the whole pre-season. Yet another reason not to pay £15m for him.

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