Liverpool FC Forum

[Redman in wales]

Stoke City have agreed a fee of around £4m with Liverpool for England international goalkeeper Scott Carson, BBC Radio Stoke understands.

Carson was at the Britannia Stadium on Monday to open negotiations over personal terms.

The 22-year-old joined Liverpool from Leeds for £750,000 in 2005, but spent last season on loan at Aston Villa, making 35 Premier League appearances.

Carson, who has two caps for England, would become Stoke's record signing.

The proposed £4m fee marks a major reduction in the player's asking price, with Liverpool previously holding out for around £10m.

However, Carson was critical of his original price tag, claiming it could price him out of a move.

Aston Villa had been favourites to sign Carson on a permanent basis but manager Martin O'Neill's interest appeared to cool with Tottenham keeper Paul Robinson emerging as a more likely target for the Villans.

Liverpool, who have already sold Peter Crouch to Portsmouth this summer, are keen to free up transfer funds as they look to finalise a deal for Villa captain Gareth Barry and continue to chase Spurs striker Robbie Keane.

Stoke, meanwhile, will hope that Carson follows midfielder Rudolph Austin into the club, the 22-year-old midfielder signing in a £1m deal from Jamaican side Portmore United.

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more money coming in but £4million is really cheap for a england squad keeper who's still only 22.

[Sabre]

more money coming in but £4million is really cheap for a england squad keeper who's still only 22.

I think that both this and Guthrie's are decent amounts of money, considering they're not regular Liverpool players. It's little money in the premiership perhaps, but with this millions you could bring the second best keeper of Spain (in some aspects of the game first) from a club that doesn't like to sell like Villarreal. 6.5M, which is more or less 10M € are a price that for instance have offered Atletico to get Arteta, it's an important money here.

4M might be few money for a young England keeper, but at the same time we cannot afford to have a young quality keeper in the bench forever, or on loan. Those 4M instead, can be used somewhere else. (I wouldn't have paid for another young keeper, rather, I'd have bought an experienced, cheap and solid backup)

[red to the bone]

Best of luck to Scott whichever direction he chooses to go, at least with Stoke he'll be kept on his toes

4mill does seem a bargain for a keeper with a bright future in the game

[Redman in wales]

good point sabre. I think at the moment we can be happy with what we get in terms of income for our 'bench players' - to a certain extent.

(Though most reports I'm reading now suggest the figure is actually £3M + £1M in add ons (which for Stoke is surely  based on staying up! as well as appearances))

[7_Kewell]

good point sabre. I think at the moment we can be happy with what we get in terms of income for our 'bench players' - to a certain extent.

(Though most reports I'm reading now suggest the figure is actually £3M + £1M in add ons (which for Stoke is surely  based on staying up! as well as appearances))

so just 3 million then. 

[account deleted by request]

wE already GOT £1.8million  from Villa for his loan last season, I think if we had got £5million for him from Stoke it would have been a fair price, but £4million does seem a bit cheap imo. I honestly don't think he is "that good" but as an England international you always want that bit more.

I think it shows just how much we are struggling for money when we are moaning about the odd million!

[Number 9]

I think its a fair enough price for a GK that was never gonna feature as our number one.
Cant help feeling this will have an impact on the Barry deal though.If Martin O'Neill was'nt pis,sed off he will be now considering we were supposed to value him at £10million to Villa!

[Leonmc0708]

More profits on players - makes a nice change.

[LFC2007]

You could look at it another way and say, in effect, we've swapped Carson for Cavalieri. A player who wanted to leave for first team football, and a player coming in to fill a void - which hasn't been fully resolved for a while.

Carson wanted to leave, and whether we priced him out of a move to Villa, or whether they were just embittered at our interest in Barry, or whether Guzan being the cheaper option was the preferred option, remains to be known. I'd speculate and say it was partly because of our interest in Barry and partly because Guzan was cheaper. The price was already agreed on our part - as far as I'm aware - so I don't know if there's much behind the point about pricing him out of a move.

It's a small fee for a good quality English keeper, but perhaps few EPL clubs are looking for a first choice keeper at present? Only the promoted clubs were really after one if you look at it, and they'd never be looking to pay £6m+.

[JC_81]

4 million is a good price for Carson.  Let's be honest, he's sh.it.  I just don't rate him at all and don't understand the hype.  Decent shot stopper but poor concentration and prone to horrendous errors.  Keepers do tend to mature late and in 10 years time he may be a good keeper.  Right now he isn't.

No hope of ever displacing Reina and only in the England squad because the standard of English keepers is at an all-time low.  Wouldn't have been happy sitting on our bench either.

Signed for around 2 million, got about 2 million from Villa for the year's loan, and now 4 million from Stoke,  can't be bad to that imo.

[Emerald Red]

You could look at it another way and say, in effect, we've swapped Carson for Cavalieri. A player who wanted to leave for first team football, and a player coming in to fill a void - which hasn't been fully resolved for a while.

Carson wanted to leave, and whether we priced him out of a move to Villa, or whether they were just embittered at our interest in Barry, or whether Guzan being the cheaper option was the preferred option, remains to be known. I'd speculate and say it was partly because of our interest in Barry and partly because Guzan was cheaper. The price was already agreed on our part - as far as I'm aware - so I don't know if there's much behind the point about pricing him out of a move.

It's a small fee for a good quality English keeper, but perhaps few EPL clubs are looking for a first choice keeper at present? Only the promoted clubs were really after one if you look at it, and they'd never be looking to pay £6m+.

Good post, and it's probably more or less exactly what's went on. We've more or less just basically swapped a keeper with less experience, with possibly a better keeper with more experience, thus improving the overall quality of the squad. Oh, and made a 1m  profit. Yay! For that one million, we can now pay someone to take Voronin, and have enough change to buy us some new balls.

[account deleted by request]

Another cracking bit of transfer business by Rick Parry then ?

[dawson99]

Aston Villa must really fecking hate us!!! biggest rivalry in World club football

[metalhead]

Best of Luck Carson

[Number 9]

Aston Villa must really fecking hate us!!! biggest rivalry in World club football

If Barry comes I can only imagine the amount of hate directed at him and Rafa when we go to Villa Park!