Oh, is that one of the injuries Taylor was suffering with!? That's shocking... reminds me of when Barton stubbed a cigarette out in Ousemane Dabo's eye while at Emirates Marketing Project.
Living with Nolan was something discipline-related too, Nolan was meant to act as a senior player and mentor him. I think it worked, but Nolan was just not the right role model! I remember them bringing a load of coked-up girls back after a heavy night haha.
I do still partly agree with Arc, I think as players mature this sort of stuff calms down. Obviously there are some players who just never grow out of it, but if we only had 1 first team striker at the start of the season, I wouldn't mind us going in for him (at a reasonable price). As it stands we may in fact have 0! The football team comes first - what we can put on the pitch. If Carroll is distinctly better than what we have, and we can't find anyone better, we need to sign him in order to stay competitive in the league. At the moment Carroll would be our first choice striker. I don't think he's good enough for that, but that is a mark of how ill-suited our strikers are to our system. We need to sign 2 strikers.
For the record I think Bale was mediocre up front in the first half against NY. I know it was the first game there of his professional career, but he didn't look comfortable with his back to goal and didn't use his body well in protecting the ball under pressure, while he also really lacked aggression in these encounters. He is a much more direct player than that, it's his power and balance, exhibiting strength at speed, along with the stamina to run all game that makes him a physical asset, not his outright strength when holding up the ball. Definitely an interesting option, and it will be worth our while getting him used to that role over time, but we simply cannot rely on him to play there at the moment.
