PERFECTLY STOKING THE flames ahead of his sides’ clash later today, West Ham striker Andy Carroll has hit out at the way he was treated by Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers in his final few months at Anfield.
In a hard-hitting interview with The Times, the 26 year-old describes the summer of 2012 and how Rodgers’ poor man-management ensured Carroll ‘lost respect for him’.
“What he was saying to me and what was actually happening (were different things). He would say: ‘You’re going to play every week, you’re going to play every game up front with (Luis) Suarez. I’d leave and get back home and he would ring me and say: ‘Fulham and West Ham want you and I think it’s best you should go’.”
It was mixed messages. He was messing with my head. I lost respect for him, to be honest.”
Carroll’s spell on Merseyside officially lasted from January 2011 until the summer of 2013 but he had known that his time was over at Liverpool for quite a while.
The turning point came when the club headed to Scotland for a Europa League qualifier against Hearts in late-August 2012.
“He (Rodgers) said I was starting. I woke up in the morning and he came in and said: ‘I think you’ve got a hamstring problem, you’re not going to start.’ I said my hamstring was fine. He said I’d be on the bench. I got to the ground and I wasn’t even on the bench. I was the only one missing out. “It was just messing me about. I was angry. I knew it was time to go. ”
Having spent the entire 2012/2013 campaign on loan at West Ham, he made a permanent switch at the end of that season and has managed 14 goals in 45 league starts for the Hammers – five of those coming in his last eight games.
