• Premier League

Dalglish lashes out at critics of Carroll transfer

Kenny Dalglish has hit out at Andy Carroll's detractors following his £35 million move from Newcastle to Liverpool.

Carroll has been brought in as a replacement for Fernando Torres, but eyebrows have been raised on the business sense of spending a British record transfer fee on a player who has spent just six months as a regular in the English Premier League.

The 22-year-old striker faced a lot of questions about his ability to justify his price tag in Thursday's press conference, and Dalglish was itching to have his say by the time the media turned to the Liverpool manager.

"We're a bit more upbeat about Andy Carroll joining than you are. Every question you ask has negativity in it," said Dalglish.

"I don't see any reason to be negative in any way, shape or form about Andy Carroll signing for Liverpool Football Club. It's a great signing for us, as is the signing of Luis [Suarez], it's fantastic for us.

"We can assure Andy we're far more positive than yourselves are. We are looking forward to getting him fit, up and ready, and I'm sure he's anxious to play as well. It might be a few weeks, but we didn't sign him for a few weeks. We signed him for five and a half years."

Dalglish began life without Torres with a 2-0 victory over Stoke on Wednesday, his third straight win sweetened by a third consecutive clean sheet, not to mention a debut goal from Suarez. Now he wants to add Carroll into his improving Liverpool side.

"Andy has huge potential, he's already in the England squad, and he is the best player we could have got for the position. Everybody in here has to justify their wages and their costs, so if you lot can do that for yourselves, I'm sure you can do it for us."

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