MIKE Ashley's Andy Carroll gamble has paid off, but it didn't feel like much of a cause for celebration at Anfield over the weekend.

Ashley played the odds in the last transfer window, creaming off the January premium Liverpool were prepared to pay for Carroll while reasoning that the club would just about have enough to survive the rest of the season.

Luck with injuries, some good management and a team spirit that still endures despite everything saw them through, but it can’t hide the fact that Newcastle are well short of a team capable of the sort of run that is pushing Sunday’s opponents back into Continental competition next season.

The Reds, of course, took a different sort of gamble in January, overspending on two players with little experience in the top flight of English football. And while the jury is still out on the Carroll move, you can’t deny that Liverpool are still sailing on the momentum generated by that double swoop for Newcastle’s now reviled number nine and Luís Suarez.

The city of Newcastle, by contrast, waits and hopes. A wafer-thin squad means the Magpies must invest, but in truth no one outside a few trusted lieutenants really knows what his intentions are.

And until Ashley puts his money where his mouth is, he is open to criticism. And in former United hero Kevin Keegan there is suddenly no bigger critic.

Having decided to keep his counsel both during his second spell at St James’ Park, where he isolated himself from local and national media, suddenly the ESPN pundit has become a vocal thorn in Ashley’s side.