Ok, this is rather more complicated than it needs to be, but for the purpose of this argument I am going to define "best signing" as "best value".
Carroll cost 35 million pounds, he is striker, 35 million pounds is I would say considered to be top whack for a world class striker, let alone Carroll (not including Chelsea and City mental spending).
Lets pick the 7th highest premier league scorer of all time, Teddy Sheringham, he has scored 147 prem goals, and isnt considered to be one of the best strikers the league has ever seen (to make it fair), Carroll has 13 prem goals to his name so far (from what I can see) he has the rest of his career to score 134 more league goals to even be considered an a handy striker, he you want to talk about him being one of the top strikers, you are going to need another 30 goals on that total.
If you want to compare him in terms of the actual money spent, he is going to need to be scoring 20 goals a season for the next 13 years before he can be considered a value signing.
Or if its not shear amount of goals, he is going to need to be scoring better than a goal in two for the rest of his top flight career.
Carroll isnt in the best signing category in the list though, he is in the potential category. If he was in the best signing category I might agree with you, but he isnt
![Smile :) :)](/styles/default/xenforo/vbSmilies/Normal/smile.gif)
His potential , imo, is precisely the same as the potential that Shearer had when his transfer broke the british record (I am not going to talk actual money values as the actual figures arent relative from one decade to the next). Whether he fulfils the potential is yet to be seen, Shearer did, but many havent fulfilled their potential, as I say...right now...today, I am not going to make it black and white and state that he will or he wont.