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A year on from the striker’s £35m transfer from Newcastle it seems a very public death has been played out

One of the most terrifying things about the internet is the way in which it draws you inexorably towards what you really, secretly, actually want, offering somewhere in its great boiling unfenced farrago an absolute match for whatever half-realised desire might flicker across your networked lobes. You cannot escape. The allure of endless choice will find you out, whether it is the simple urge to argue about cricket or a powerful carnal attraction to certain breeds of Pacific starfish. For me the internet has recently provided some troubling revelations in its capacity as a universal jukebox that offers access to any musical genre unfettered by conventions of taste or fashion. It has been a bit of a shock. But in quiet moments at home I have found myself increasingly drawn to the music of Sting.

Naturally, this is embarrassing. Sting is not cool. He isn’t even anti-cool, remaining fixed in the public consciousness as a kind of humourless celebrity, the kind of man who strides about his mansion in tailored robes and makes a big deal of baking his own bread from fair trade Zambian spelt flour and who probably has an air-conditioned anteroom full of ancient first edition calfskin texts of grand literary classics that he occasionally peruses late at night sitting cross-legged and naked except for an Elizabethan pince-nez.

I know all this. But the unfettered pull of the internet tells me that he is also a lyrical master – really, some of those words are very good – plus perhaps the finest cod reggae Geordie-Jamaican voice of the last century (note that I am keeping this decent by sticking to the grudgingly tolerated Police). There is also something to be said for the yuppie saxophone pop of early solo Sting, just prior to the lost years of early onset rainforest Jesus syndrome.

The reason for mentioning this is that I was reminded of Sting while watching Andy Carroll play for Liverpool against Manchester City. Or rather, not so much reminded of Sting as the sad-faced Amazonian tribesman Sting used to bring with him to awards ceremonies and TV talk shows. This is who Carroll reminds me of these days: a gnarled, dignified, quietly obsolete figure, carrying with him above all an air of terrible sadness. The world that might have nourished this towering, peat-smelling specimen from English football’s withered folk past has now vanished, but still we parade him about under the main stage lights, his face a haunting mask of ancient confusion.

It is safe to say now that Carroll’s move to Liverpool is one of the great transfer disasters, Newcastle’s accounts department aside. And yet the sadness of Carroll feels terribly unfair, firstly because he is a very talented player. Carroll is brilliant at heading the ball. Unfortunately, this is pretty much an obsolete skill among those who aspire to the top level of modern football. It seems poignant that Carroll will play on Saturday against Stoke City, the Premier League team who pass the ball longest and highest and who might still have the greatest use for his potency. As it is, hurling Carroll in among Liverpool’s Suarez-geared short-passing attack is a bit like a classical orchestra deciding to recruit a heavy metal guitarist who proceeds to lurk at the front, mooching and smoking and producing the odd crashingly inappropriate power solo.

Because he is a good team man Carroll will continue to run willingly, lumbering sideways like a drunken horse, still doing his “passing”, addressing the ball with the finesse of a man booting an old hubcap along a motorway verge. But what he really wants to do is fly free, wrenching his neck muscles majestically, toppling like a collapsed telephone mast, seeking the kind of perfect swinging cross Joey Barton would often launch in search of that club-like forehead.

This is Carroll’s signature at Liverpool: he seems constantly in need of something that just won’t come, waving his arms, pointing at his own head, semaphoring his own irrelevance. “It was a lonely role for And Carroll,” Gary Lineker mused on Wednesday night, after a game in which Carroll could occasionally be seen flopping zanily about the City penalty area, as though someone had thrown a mattress on to the pitch from a helicopter . But it is always a lonely role for this oddly poignant figure, perhaps English football’s last ever attempt at a big money all-conquering targetman.

This is not a rant against the tidal urgencies of English football, the vision of the game as a primarily athletic pursuit where the power to leap and wrestle is just as important as the ability to tread daintily. It is instead a lament for Carroll, and for the lost grandeur of the lineage of Carrolls, English football’s rootsy history of big men and targetmen, clunking assault towers of the penalty area. The Carroll signing looks above all like a moment of nostalgic optimism, a dream of a world where this kind of thing is still relevant, where English football has finally come up with the perfect £35m medieval battering ram.

But the sadness of Carroll is rooted in his own obvious discomfort and unhappiness. It is now almost a year since his move and the image of Carroll striding off a plane in ragged designer jeans is still fresh. In the meantime he has played out in public a kind of species death. This will surely be the last time anyone in English football pays that much money for that kind of player. Perhaps with some returning confidence he might yet employ his thunderous left foot to good effect, or offer glimpses of that ball butting potency. But it is a battle against the tide. For Carroll it is, as his fellow Geordie might have pointed out, so lonely out there.

Andy CarrollLiverpoolBarney Ronayguardian.co.uk

• Luis Suárez T-shirt stunt was ‘interpreted wrongly’
• Liverpool ‘will always support’ battle against racism

Kenny Dalglish has said that it is “utterly rubbish” to suggest that defending Luis Suárez against racism accusations showed Liverpool are not interested in fighting racism.

The Uruguay striker is serving an eight-match ban for racially abusing Patrice Evra and has been criticised for failing to apologise to the Manchester United defender.

Liverpool were condemned by anti-racism groups for resolutely backing Suárez and allowing the squad and Dalglish to wear T-shirts featuring Suárez’s picture in a show of solidarity during a prematch warm-up.

After facing weeks of criticism, the Liverpool has issued a statement on the club website to say that Liverpool “don’t want racism anywhere near football”.

“Over the past few weeks there has been a perception that the football club isn’t doing what it should be doing [to fight racism] but I don’t think the football club would ever go down that road,” Dalglish said. “We will always support the official campaigns related to racism. Obviously there was a big issue with Luis.

“The players showed support for Luis, which was fantastic, but then some people interpreted that wrongly as the players saying they’re not interested in the fight against racism. That is totally and utterly rubbish.”

Liverpool’s attempts to move on from the Suárez case have been hampered by another racism investigation involving the club. The Oldham defender Tom Adeyemi was reduced to tears by insults from Liverpool fans during an FA Cup-tie at Anfield and had to be comforted by team‑mates and opposing players.

Police have arrested a 20-year-old man from the Liverpool area on suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offence. He was released on police bail on Sunday pending further inquiries.

“The person who shouted whatever he shouted at Tom that upset him, if we can help the police find out who it is and he gets charged, then whatever we can do to make the punishment as severe as it could be will be done,” Dalglish said.

A year after returning to the manager’s job after 20 years, Dalglish said that Liverpool would not be one of the world’s most popular clubs if they had failed to combat racism.

“I can guarantee to the supporters out there that there is no way I would have come back to this football club if I thought it was in any way, shape or form racist or discriminatory,” he said. “I wouldn’t be here.”

Preparations have already begun at Liverpool for the first visit of United since Suárez’s confrontation with Evra during a Premier League match in October. The north-west rivals will meet in the FA Cup fourth round on the weekend of 28‑29 January.

“There were definitely a few raised eyebrows from everyone after that draw,” Ian Ayre, Liverpool’s managing director, said. “With all that’s gone on, people will talk about it and talk about it but I think the most important thing for us is to make sure that we make it a great day and a great game.

“We need to make sure that we all work together to make sure that everybody concentrates on the excitement of the football and the FA Cup and not on anything else.”

LiverpoolKenny DalglishLuis Suárezguardian.co.uk

• Barriers to be trialled at Sheffield Wednesday v West Ham
• Margaret Aspinall calls plans ‘insensitive’

A campaigner for justice following the Hillsborough disaster has claimed it is “insensitive” to use crowd control barriers for an FA Cup game at the stadium this weekend. Margaret Aspinall, whose 18-year-old son James died in the tragedy in 1989 when Liverpool took on Nottingham Forest in an FA Cup semi-final, said she could not understand why police were testing the use of the barriers.

South Yorkshire police and Sheffield Wednesday announced on Thursday that they would try out the new barriers for Sunday’s game against West Ham. It was chosen as a trial ahead of the derby match against Sheffield United next month.

Mrs Aspinall, chairman of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, said: “I am quite disappointed about this. I think it is very insensitive, especially as they are doing it for an FA Cup game. I don’t understand why they are doing this and I am really angry about it.”

She said she felt using the barriers at the same Leppings Lane end where 96 Liverpool fans received fatal injuries was particularly insensitive. Liverpool fans were crushed to death and many could not escape as they were penned in by fences surrounding the pitch.

The barriers have already been used at Sheffield United’s Bramall Lane ground earlier this season. South Yorkshire police said they used “a variety of nationally approved tactics to police large events”.

A spokeswoman said: “SYP, along with other police forces throughout the country, have been using crowd control barriers at football matches and other public events for a few years. The barriers are used at other South Yorkshire stadiums, most recently at a local derby, but this will be the first time the barriers have been prepared to be used at Hillsborough.

“The force’s priority is to maintain public safety and the barriers or mounted officers are only used outside the grounds to guide the public safely away from the area.”

Hillsborough disasterSheffield WednesdayLiverpoolWest Ham UnitedFA Cup 2011-12FA Cupguardian.co.uk