Transfer Update: Carroll to West Ham - More to Come?

The way that this is being reported around the Interwebs (including by our own Nik on Twitter), it appears that Andy Carroll to West Ham is officially on. The deal is a one year loan with a clause that sketches out a permanent transfer should West Ham stay up at the end of this season. By itself, this is a good move for West Ham who improve on Carlton Cole as a their target forward and also give Sam Allardyce the option to use the sort of twin-battering-ram line-up (featuring Cole and Carroll) that his Bolton teams used to regularly finish far better than their talent would lead you to believe was possible. It would seem to me that this increases Carroll's value in fantasy as well as increasing that Fabio Borini at Liverpool unless...

...this is really the first domino that has to fall before Clint Dempsey-to-Liverpool becomes a reality. There are rumors all over the Twitter implying that Dempsey has pulled out of Fulham's pre-season tour. Whether anyone actually KNOWS if this is because a move maybe afoot or if it is unrelated (there are plenty of guys who aren't on their team's pre-season tours) is unknown to me but this is the season of 1+1=3 so why not.

I'm a huge Dempsey fan but if I think about the type of team that Brendan Rodgers put together at Swansea then I can't say I see Dempsey - or any other forward currently on the books at Liverpool - as the likely successor to Carroll in the Danny Graham/central attacker role. Dempsey isn't a tiny speedster but he's also not a target forward. He's more similar to Gylfi Sigurdsson (there's that name again, I'm going to have real trouble liking a Spurs player this much) than any other Swansea player from last season. Unless Borini is sturdier than I remember, the current Liverpool attack is starting to look like a doughnut - lots of good stuff around the edges but no substance in the middle.

If this is how things play out, I'll be very interested to see how it comes to fruition on the pitch come the start of the season.

What are your thoughts on Andy Carroll to West Ham? The potential of Clint Dempsey to Liverpool? Anyone else (within the realm of reason) you'd rather see taking Carroll's spot?