Liverpool's Dalglish defends under-fire Carroll

LIVERPOOL, England (Reuters) -- Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish reassured his most expensive player Andy Carroll on Thursday that he was worth the 35 million pounds paid for him as the striker faced a media grilling over the club record fee.

The striker became the most expensive English player when he was brought in just before the transfer window shut on Monday as the club sought to fill the hole left by Fernando Torres's departure for Chelsea.

Carroll, who has scored 11 goals this season, was asked whether he felt he was worth the money.

"I'm sure that time will tell really," he told reporters. "I've scored goals at Newcastle and that is what I want to do here. We'll just have to wait and see."

Dalglish stepped in to defend the massive fee paid for the 22-year-old, who will not make his debut for a few weeks because of a thigh strain he was carrying before he joined on the same day Liverpool signed Uruguay striker Luis Suarez.

"Every question you ask is negative, we don't see any reason whatsoever to be negative in any way shape or form about Andy Carroll signing for Liverpool Football Club," Dalglish said.

"It is a great signing for us, it's fantastic for us. We can reassure Andy that we are more positive than what yourselves are.

"The price might be a bit more than what some people think it should be but every single person in here has got to justify their wages and their costs so if you can do that for yourselves then I'm sure he can do that for us."

Suarez made a dream start by scoring on his debut in Wednesday's 2-0 home victory over Stoke City in the Premier League as Carroll watched from the stand.

"We're really looking forward to getting him fit," Dalglish said. "It may be a few weeks but we never signed him for a few weeks, we signed him for five and a half years."