Magpies star Carroll won’t commit to Scotland

Mar 15 2010 by Luke Edwards, The Journal

“It is my grandma who means I qualify for Scotland, but I’m English. England is my number one target really.” Carroll took his tally for the season to 12 against Middlesbrough, although Peter Lovenkrands has moved level with Kevin Nolan at the top of the goalscoring charts with 13 after his first-half strike at the Riverside.

Carroll claims he is not overly fussed by the race to finish the season as the team’s leading goalscorer, even though it is something he always dreamed about as a youngster.

He said: “It would mean more for me to finish as a top scorer as a striker. But it’s not that important to be honest.

“What’s important is that we get back in the Premier League and get out of this division.

“It would mean something because I was a fan before I started playing, but we know promotion is all that matters to us all.

“Boro edged in front and it looked like we might lose, but I always thought that we had the quality to get the equaliser when we did fall behind.

“That is how it proved. I thought it was slipping away from us. They kept pressing when they scored, but we levelled. It shows our resilience to dig out that result. We all stuck together and we worked hard as a team to stay in the game.”