ANDY CARROLL'S kids reckon he'll join Manchester City or Barcelona having left Newcastle.
The striker was unceremoniously dumped by his boyhood club at the end of last season and is yet to find a new team.
Carroll, 32, featured 43 times for the Magpies after his emotional return in the summer of 2019 and scored just once.
However, he was rarely a starter and only notched up 1,296 minutes on the field.
He'd left West Ham after seven rollercoaster years – the last of which were mainly spent injured.
But the Geordie told the Athletic he was fit for most of his second spell at St James' Park but just wasn't picked by Steve Bruce.
Despite his career seeming to stall over the past few seasons, his five children still think there's a place for the former England man at the top.
Carroll is dad to Emilie Rose and Lucas from a previous relationship and he shares Arlo, Wolf and Marvel Mae with partner Billi Mucklow.
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The former Liverpool man said: "The kids still think I’m going to sign for Man City or Barcelona, which we all know is not going to happen.
"But they’re still pushing me on to get a club and it’s what I want to do. I want to play in front of my family and win games.
"My drive and my passion hasn’t faded away in the slightest. I’m very lucky to get paid for a hobby, really.
"If I wasn’t doing it for a living, I’d be playing with my friends. It’s all I know."
Carroll was left on the bench for Newcastle's last game of the 2020-21 season – a 2-0 win at Fulham.
And with the second of two one-year contracts set to expire, he said he was still in the dark about his future.
He claimed club chiefs had told him they would discuss his future at the end of that campaign but no such talks ever took place.
'I NEVER SAW THEM AGAIN'
Carroll explained: “After the game, it was, ‘Ah, I might see you, I might not, we’ll see what happens’, and then nothing happened.
“We just got on the bus and left and I never saw them again. My contract ran out and that was it. I never went back.
"I’ve still got my locker up there full of my stuff. The kitman rang me the other day, so I’m getting it moved down.”
Despite offers from the UK and abroad, Carroll says he would rather stay near to his Essex home so as not to disturb his family.
He added: "My daughter has just started senior school and I don’t really want to move them all away.
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"They’ve been in Essex and I’ve been in Newcastle for the last two years, they were coming up at weekends and in school holidays and that’s something I don’t really want to do again.
"So when I’m getting calls about Turkey and everywhere in Europe… I don’t know where I’ll end up.
"Ideally, it would be just around the corner from me, but if not I’d be happy to travel."
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