Soccer: Carroll feels chill of Dalglish's gaze

It was a last chance saloon for Andy Carroll on Sunday, because the notion that Kenny Dalglish values the striker is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. Liverpool have privately denied that they proposed a swap deal to Manchester City last week - Carroll for Carlos Tevez - but specific detail on that offer came to light recently.

The move is unlikely, because City covet Carroll as little as they covet the notion of Tevez getting busy scoring goals at Anfield in the next five months. Audacious and imaginative though an approach by Liverpool to City's football administrator, Brian Marwood, might have been, for Tevez the timing was fairly disastrous. Hours earlier, Craig Bellamy had reminded City of the drawbacks attached to selling players to their rivals by eliminating the club from the Carling Cup.

Which brings us back to Carroll, an infinitely weaker force than Tevez in the one year at Anfield which he marks on Thursday (NZ time), and a player who is no more contented on Merseyside than Tevez is in the Greater Manchester conurbation.

There have certainly been telephone calls from those closest to him in the past month exploring whether the route back to Tyneside might be open to him. This explained a story of 20 days ago, suggesting Newcastle would be like minded if the price were £20 million ($38.2m).

Liverpool had no hand in that proposition and will not be taking a £15m hit on the money they laid out, which means that Carroll - much like Tevez - will be going nowhere this week. His time on Tyneside will remain limited to the social trips he seeks whenever he can, during which, in his early days, he complained that Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher did not seem interested in him. He maintained a brave face after Sunday's game, though his response to the question of whether it had ever crossed his mind that he might leave for the North-east was not exactly emphatic.

"I'm just here. I've signed a contract here and this is the team I'm playing for," he said.

Carroll was coincidentally watched at close quarters by Roberto Mancini's assistant David Platt, who was at Anfield on Sunday. He has four months to salvage a little of the reputation that came with becoming the most expensive British player of all time and Sunday certainly provided the impression that he is not a lost cause. If he had caught a negative vibe from his club, then he didn't betray as much in a performance which went far beyond leaping way above Jonny Evans to send Dirk Kuyt sprinting in for Sunday's winner, leaving Patrice Evra lost back in the dust.

The ease and mobility Carroll showed when, facing his own goalkeeper on the halfway line, he fended off Chris Smalling to ease a ball into the path of Gerrard - who powered through towards goal and fired waywardly over the bar - recalled his Newcastle pedigree.

Of course, this kind of contribution is considered ancillary to the role of scoring goals, which Carroll has failed to do since his £35m arrival last February. But he is waiting for Liverpool to learn how to involve him.

Dalglish's ironic response when he was asked about Carroll's strong performance did not augur too well.

"Well done Andy!" Dalglish said. "He has to develop ... and work within our framework as well."

A curious answer, considering the money Liverpool have invested.

Independent