'I was pleading': Alan Pardew sheds more light on Andy Carroll's £35m deadline day move from Newcastle United to Liverpool
Liverpool breaking a transfer record to sign a Newcastle United striker on deadline day isn't just a 2025 thing. The same thing happened in January 2011 when Andy Carroll was sold to the Reds for a record fee for a British player, £35 million.
The Andy Carroll move seemed to come out of nowhere when compared to the weeks-long saga that unfolded over this summer around Alexander Isak; however, that only seemed to make it all the more devastating.
The fact that Carroll was one of our own added an extra few inches of despair for Geordies to sink into.
Mike Ashley sold Newcastle United in 2021, and many fans would argue that he still hadn't spent the £35 million he picked up for Carroll.
Alan Pardew pleaded with Mike Ashley not to sell Andy Carroll in 2011
Alan Pardew was the Newcastle boss at the time, and he has now told Sky Sports News that he 'pleaded' with Mike Ashley not to sell.
“I had it with Andy Carroll at Newcastle, and I was pleading with Mike not to sell him. Don’t sell him.
“And I was saying it was 28 million, 29 million at the time, last day of the window. And actually, I ended up getting Newcastle and Mike Ashley 5 million pound more because I kept saying no. But in the end, eventually they accepted.”
Newcastle United would claim that Andy Carroll handed in a transfer request
Newcastle would claim at the time that they 'reluctantly accepted Carroll's transfer request,' but subsequent interviews years after the fact would suggest that Carroll didn't want to leave his boyhood club, even saying he was 'forced' to leave.
We shouldn't be surprised that the club blatantly lied to fans about how things went down. Nothing the club did under Mike Ashley was done in the interests of the club, and the fans were treated like pure garbage for almost all of his time at the helm, other than the early weeks when we all foolishly thought the sun shone out of his ... boardroom.
Selling arguably our best player at the time set the tone for the next ten years under Ashley's despotic regime.
