When Andy Carroll joined Liverpool in a then club-record £35m deal from Newcastle United in January 2011, he infamously hoped that he would fail his medical. The striker was injured at the time, and would have to wait until the following March to make his debut.

With Fernando Torres on his way to Chelsea in a record £50m deal, Carroll was the Reds’ desired replacement of choice.

The 22-year-old had enjoyed an impressive first half of the season with the Magpies, scoring 11 goals from just 19 Premier League matches - including an eye-catching 25-yard strike against Liverpool in a 3-1 win at St. James’ Park only weeks before his own move to Anfield.

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And while that helped attract the interest of the Reds, he found himself forced into completing a transfer he never wanted to make.

“Do you know what, I was injured at the time, and all I'm thinking is, ‘Please, just fail the medical,’” he admitted to the Daily Mail in 2019. “The minute I got on that helicopter I wanted to come back.

“I remember leaving Newcastle's training ground in Kevin Nolan's car because loads of people were outside. We went to his house and watched it on TV. I was like, ‘I'm not going’. I'd just bought a house, and a cat the day before! But then I was told, ‘You're going’, and that was that.

“I would have rather stayed at the time and all the way to the helicopter I'm thinking, ‘What is happening? What am I doing?’"

At the time of his transfer, he made it clear that he had not wanted to leave Newcastle as he publicly accused the Magpies of forcing him out of the club.

"Derek [Llambias, Newcastle's managing director] asked me to hand in a transfer request, so I was pushed into a corner and had no choice," he said. "I wasn't wanted by them and they made it clear they wanted the money.

"Then I flew down in [owner Mike Ashley's] helicopter. I didn't want to leave. I'm gutted that I wasn't wanted at my home team after everything I have done and the progress I have made.

"I didn't want to leave at all. Make sure they know I didn't want to leave. The players, staff and fans were fantastic."

Carroll’s Reds career ultimately did not go to plan as the striker struggled with form and injury. He would return only 11 goals and four assists from 58 appearances, before being deemed surplus to requirements by new manager Brendan Rodgers in the summer of 2013 - just 18 months after his record transfer to Anfield.

Liverpool would end up offloading the striker on loan to West Ham United at the end of August, though missed out on their desired replacement in Clint Dempsey to Fulham. The Hammers parted with a £2m loan fee before spending a further £15m the following summer to land Carroll permanently.

But while Rodgers had been keen to offload Carroll after taking over at Liverpool, there were those at Anfield who had been for the striker to stay put at the club - in the short term at least.

Well-aware that the Reds had overpaid when parting with £35m for the England international, Dr. Ian Graham - Liverpool’s former director of research - was tasked with attempting to persuade Rodgers to keep Carroll in an attempt to protect his re-sale value.

“Our squad was desperately short of strikers,” Graham recalled in his book, ‘How to win the Premier League: The inside story of football’s data revolution’, published earlier this year. Dirk Kuyt, Craig Bellamy and Maxi Rodriguez had been allowed to leave and we needed replacements.

“Our priority was Daniel Sturridge, who was surplus to requirements at Chelsea. However, Brendan Rodgers was against the idea. His preference at centre-forward was Fabio Borini, yet another player who had played for him at Swansea.

“To make matters worse, Brendan told the owners he would not play Andy Carroll, the striker signed for £35 million 18 months previously as Fernando Torres’ replacement.

“Tom Werner asked me if I would speak with Brendan about Carroll. My first meeting with Brendan didn’t start well… I’d lost Brendan’s interest. I now had to bring up the subject of Andy Carroll.

“‘Brendan, I know your style of play doesn’t suit a player like Andy Carroll. I agree there’s no place for him in your long-term plans. But the owners paid a lot of money for him. If we can increase his value this season and sell him next summer, that means more money to spend next year.

“‘I’m not suggesting you start Carroll in every game, but at Anfield, against smaller teams who only care about defending their own box, why not bring him on as a substitute if we’ve failed to break them down after 60 minutes? Just as a Plan B? He’ll score a few goals and we can sell him next summer.’

“Carroll’s market value was at a low point - he had only scored six Premier League goals in his 18 months at Liverpool, and would not attract a high transfer fee if he was to leave, as Brendan wanted.

“We knew that it would be impossible to recoup all of Carroll’s huge transfer fee, but if we could raise market interest in his skills through playing him, we might recoup a decent fraction of it.

“Brendan did not think much of my suggestion. He told me that his Plan A was so good that a Plan B was not necessary.”

Rodgers would ultimately have his way as Carroll left Liverpool. And unlike when he joined the Reds, this time the striker was in no doubt about making his latest transfer. In fact, the chance to reunite with Sam Allardyce and Kevin Nolan left him convinced the switch was a ‘no-brainer’.

“I’d finished my first full season at Liverpool by scoring in the 2012 FA Cup final,” he recalled to West Ham’s website earlier this year. “Then, just two matches into 2012/13, aged 23, I got the chance to come on loan to newly-promoted West Ham United and start more regularly than I probably would’ve done at Anfield under new manager, Brendan Rodgers.

“As I said at the time, it was a no-brainer to move to Upton Park because I’d worked with Sam Allardyce at Newcastle United and he knew the player and person I was. And the gaffer also knew that I was the type of striker who had the self-belief to fit into any system that he wanted to play.

“I’d been very close to new West Ham captain Kevin Nolan up at St James’ Park, too, and Kev also played a really big part in my move. As soon as I arrived, I saw that there was a great bunch of lads in the dressing room and fell in love with everything about the place.

“Big Sam had told me all about his plans and, having just broken the club’s transfer record to sign Matt Jarvis, I knew there would be no shortage of crosses or chances coming into the penalty box…

“The patient Hammers fans had been great to me throughout and were still chanting my name as we walked off after beating Reading in our final match. My loan spell now over, though, I walked back down the Boleyn Ground tunnel reckoning I’d probably just played my last-ever game for the club.

“Thankfully, summer 2013 gave me the opportunity to make that loan spell permanent in a £15 million transfer.”