The morning after January Transfer Deadline Day. Fernando Torres is gone to Chelsea for £50m, Andy Carroll is gone to Liverpool for £35m and the whole world is gone mad and you'd like to think excitable Sky Sports News presenter Jim White is gone for a well-earned lie-down in a darkened room. And with no reason to shout things at rich young men driving to and from Premier League training grounds in expensive cars, his colleagues out in the field are at a loss to know what to do with themselves. All that remains for the Rumour Mill to do is to tie up the few remaining loose ends regarding the blizzard of cash that blew across the English football landscape yesterday, so where better to start than with Andy Carroll's mind-boggling £35m move from Newcastle United to Liverpool.

According to the Toon Talk Newcastle fan website, Carroll claimed via a series of text messages that he was forced out of St James' Park by club suits, who are believed to have asked the striker to pretend he wanted to leave. A man named Steve, who runs the website and claims to be friends with Carroll, says the player texted him on Saturday afternoon to say "I'm not going anywhere mate," only to change his tune shortly after 5pm yesterday afternoon, when he revealed that "They have kind of said we don't want u but want me to say I wanna go. And I said I don't want to go."

Carroll then went on to reveal that, contrary to what was reported in the news, he didn't hand in a transfer request yesterday. "No I didn't that's what I mean that's what they wanted me to do and I said no," he said via another text to Toon Talk. He then went on to say that he was "Gutted to be leaving Newcastle but I was kind of pushed out the door."

If the texts purporting to be from Carroll are genuine, the news that their prized asset was sold against his will and without being replaced is likely to infuriate already fed-up Newcastle fans, who have every reason to fear that their club's owner Mike Ashley will reinvest the £35m booty he got for the centre-forward on something other than reinforcements: chocolate cake, perhaps, or several sets of tastefully bespoke diamond-encrusted ermine curtains for his house. If the texts purporting to be from Carroll are not genuine, then today's Rumours are going to look even more foolish than usual. Expect proper journalists to get to the bottom of the matter later today.

Meanwhile in Blackpool, Charlie Adam is believed to be "distraught" that his chairman turned down a £14m bid from Liverpool to secure his scrawl, while Tottenham Hotspur were beaten by the clock in their late efforts to sign the Scottish midfielder with a magic wand for a left peg. Yesterday will go down as a decidedly unsuccessful transfer deadline day for wheeling and dealing's Harry Redknapp, with the Tottenham Hotspur manager failing in his efforts to land a string of high profile superstars - Diego Forlán, Sergio Agüero, Giuseppe Rossi, Luís Fabiano, Fernando Llorente - and Phil Neville.

In more mundane news, today's Daily Express reports that lesser-spotted Frenchman Gabriel Obertan has "stunned Manchester United" by handing in a transfer request. The France under-21 international has failed to make much of an impact since signing for £3m from Bordeaux 18 months ago and is believed to be hankering after a return to his homeland during the summer, despite having over two years left to run on his contract.