Quote Originally Posted by ghostrider View Post
I'd say it was more convenient for Carroll to pull his stunt where he couldn't lose. I'd definitely say the money was too good to turn down and due to his injury, I think we dodged a bullet, anyway.
The issue of whether Ashley peddled Carroll for the cash alone or whether Carroll forced the issue by trying to renegotiate a very-recently signed new contract on the back of such a huge offer is moot (as it goes, at the time I was massively pissed off but with Carroll as much as fatso).

The key point is that with no time left to replace him we sold our top scorer and talismanic Number 9 who was the focal point of our attack and had actually already played 19 games, scoring 11 goals. You can't use hindsight to argue that selling him was good business in the light of that context-regardless of how things turned out on the injury front. That deal was purely about what was best for the owner, not what was best for the team.