Andy Carroll: Number Nine

By Luke Edwards on Jul 22, 10 12:42 PM

Chris Hughton has got more calls right than wrong since he became Newcastle United's manager and his decision to give Andy Carroll the number nine shirt was a definitely the correct one.

Ok, so a player who has a court case for an alleged assault hanging over him, and one who was involved in a training ground bust up with another teammate last season, may not, on the face of things, seem like the ideal choice to fill such an iconic shirt.

However, with the number comes responsibility and by handing him the famous shirt, Hughton is challenging Carroll to not only score goals for Newcastle United, he is asking him to grow up and take on more responsibility.

Carroll is no longer the young, exciting prospect. He is a senior member of the squad with one of the best known shirts in English football on his back and he has to start behaving like it.

Cagey and cautious to the point of frustration he may be, but Hughton is more intelligent than your average football manager and it is moments like this that you realise it.

He could have left if vacant again, he could have offered it to lure another striker to the club, but he has given it to the homegrown player who will have fantasised about wearing it is a child.

This is a pivotal season for Carroll and not just because of the court case in October. He came on in leaps and bounds in the Championship last term.

Now he has to prove he can do it against the best teams, and against the best defenders in the country.

It is far too early to be talking about him as an England international, but he is certainly heading in the right direction after last season.

If he scores goals early on, who knows, Fabio Capello may well come calling. Young English players are in short supply in the Premier League and they are very much in demand.

Few are better than him in the air and if he can develop the nous to go with the brawn, Newcastle and, eventually England, will have a real player on their hands.

The secret will be not to let Carroll get ahead of himself. He is a long way from the finished article. There have been favourable comparisons with Duncan Ferguson, a targetman striker who was unplayable on his day.

But Ferguson never realised his potential. Those days never came round often enough, whether he was playing for Newcastle or Everton.

He was a player who teased you. He was a what might have been star of the Premier League rather than a genuine one like, say, Alan Shearer.

Carroll is still young and he is still learning. If he can put his off the pitch problems behind him, he could be the latest in a long line of famous number nines, a local hero in every sense of the word.

That is the challenge Hughton has given him. It is a challenge he will either rise to or buckle under.