Former Liverpool and Newcastle United striker Andy Carroll has revealed he will ask for special dispensation to be released by Bordeaux to make it to Wembley in time for Sunday's Carabao Cup final.
But the former Reds No.9 is in no doubt as to who he will be cheering for on the day as he plans to watch the game with his family in the Newcastle end.
Carroll spent two-and-a-half years on Liverpool's book after joining for what was a club-record deal of £35m from his boyhood Newcastle in January of 2011 and he lifted his only top-level trophy in English football while at Anfield, which came when the Reds won the League Cup in 2012 under Sir Kenny Dalglish.
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As a native Geordie and a lifelong Magpies fan, though, former England frontman Carroll has no split loyalties for the game and believes whichever team can best handle the respective dangermen of Mohamed Salah and Alexander Isak will triumph in the showpiece.
And Carroll has also revealed how he will be made to request permission from Bordeaux boss Bruno Irles to make it to London in time for the first final of the campaign.
"I will be at the game, yeah," Carroll told Sky Sports News. "I will have to ask the manager if I can leave straight from the game on Saturday and drive to Paris to fly home to get to the game on Sunday and take the kids .
"Me and my boys are obviously all wanting a [Newcastle] win and my dad is coming with me as well, so we are all wanting to win. But it is going to be a tough one. If I am going to go anything I am going to go 2-1 to Newcastle.
"I think [a trophy] is something every fan has been waiting for, you know, and if it's going to happen, it's going to happen in the next few years with the team and the manager and it would be brilliant to have it on Sunday.
"I went to the League Cup final two years ago (against Manchester United) and it was a hard result to take really. The lads played really well in that one and from that they have the experience so going into this one, I think that is massive.
"I think [Salah and Isak] are the key players. I think Isak for Newcastle is massive and it's a player we have to keep hold of at the end of the season as well and when he is on form as he is now, he is great.
"And then you go to Liverpool with Salah and he is scoring goals as well and he is not stopping, is he? I think if either player gets stopped then that's the team [who will win]."
Premier League leaders Liverpool head into the weekend 15 points clear at the top of the table but on the back of a Champions League exit on Tuesday night to Paris Saint-Germain, which Carroll believes will firm up the determination of Arne Slot's players to win an 11th League Cup and retain the trophy they lifted 13 months ago.
Carroll adds: "I don't know [about the PSG result], I think it might even spur them on even more to come to this final now.
"It was a bad result for them so the only thing they can do now is bounce back from this, so it is going to be a tough one."
