I Suspect that the trophies presented at the end of the season have yet to experience their first application of silver polish however, already there is transfer talk in the air.

Whatever Liverpool’s out or inflows the future of Andy Carroll was always going to be the one thing that was decided once and for all during this break. So the recent news that fee had been agreed with West Ham is no surprise?

Many have already seen fit to question the wisdom of Brendon Rogers in letting Carroll go however one wonders just how much his hands were tied? True I suspect that in an ideal world BR wouldn’t be the sort of manager to sign a player in the Style of Carroll however, he “inherited” him and was presumably betwixt and between when he was loaned out last September to Upton Park? On one side he had been “deprived” of the services of a striker who didn’t fit not his style of play and FSG, ever conscious of the purse strings, were also happy as his salary was being paid. However, as we know, this left us woefully short of striking power until the signing of Daniel Sturridge in January. A reckless, foolhardy decision which we were lucky to get away with due the continued fitness of Luis Suarez?

The reported sum of £15m (plus add ons) we will receive is clearly way short of the £35m we paid for Carroll however, it is FSG and not BR that should take the blame and the hit is not in the pockets I suspect but in the area of the body that lies between them! It must be a painful financial lesson learnt which I suspect, budget and transfer policy wise, the club is “reaping” the consequences of now?

I suspect there is a feeling amongst many reds that we should have persevered with Carroll particularly because of BR’s apparent lack of a “credible plan B” to his preferred style of play. I believe BR has no firm plan B or no real plan C, and plan D is just a distant ship smoke on the horizon, however, that does not necessarily mean Carroll is the answer to this. When you look back over his time with us, and strip out the injuries, his performances, although not necessarily bad, certainly didn’t seem to justify the £35m fee. I wonder just how much, with Torres gone, desperation there was in our offer? Whatever the case there is no getting away from it, we overpaid big style and even if Carroll was on top form, we’d probably have no chance of getting it back? Moreover I would wager good money that he will be back to haunt us in some way or another next season?

Elsewhere it looks like BR might get the “man” he seemed to think we are so short of, particularly in defence. I don’t know if Kolo Toure smokes a pipe, rips up trees, shaves with a cut throat razor, takes cold baths and talks with a deep voice however, at 32 years old he is certainly not a kid! Toure is, I guess, seen as a replacement to the experience of Jamie Carragher but does that mean he has to be as old! Of course this is nonsense Toure is Toure and Carragher is Carragher they have, and will, bring different things to the side, on and off the field.

Toure’s contract is up this summer meaning he’ll be on a free transfer which gives us an fair indication about his involvement at Manchester City recently and why we are probably interested in him! However, I guess we should look at this in context. Perhaps Toure will bookend nicely with our other defensive target, Schalke’s Kyriakos Papadopoulos who is 21 years old and highly rated. Papadopoulos, despite his few years, has been around for a while having played in the Champions League and also attracted interest from AC Milan. I guess he is just the sort of player the frugal folks at Anfield would be willing to spend their money on?

Perhaps Papadopoulos has been bought so the owners can make an killing on names to be printed on the back of their new shirts, it’s a hell of a lot of letters! The new home shirt was paraded at Sunday’s game it’s roughly the same as the one before with a little bit of white on the collar. Warrior say it harks back to the design we wore in Rome when we beat Roma in the 1984 European Cup final. It is nothing like it!

I assumed that Warrior were issuing this so that they would be able to change the away Kits next season keeping the home kit for two seasons before changing it again. This seems to be the norm for most clubs, changing home and away kits in alternative seasons? However, Warrior have also bought out new second and third kits! We live austere times so I hope the fans will protest against Warrior’s commercial greediness by not buying these garish products, it shouldn’t be too hard, both look absolutely awful!