Liverpool moved for Carroll on transfer deadline day in January 2011 after Fernando Torres was sold to Chelsea. The Geordie eventually moving to Anfield for a then record £35m.
Nolan told The Good, The Bad & The Football podcast: “He (Carroll) didn’t want to go, he didn’t want to leave.
“They (Newcastle) were just like, ‘No, we’ve got £35m’. I remember sitting with him, he’d come to my house.
“Everyone was looking for him and he kept getting calls. I was talking to him, it was like £29m… £31m, and I’m like, ‘What, for him?’
“We had a really good six months. We’d been good (together) in the Premier League, terrorised a few and we were getting a nice little partnership. It was taken away… And we had a good squad.
“With Andy, he was leaving mine to go and get on the helicopter (to Liverpool).
“He said ‘I don’t want to go’. He was a Newcastle lad and wanted to be a Newcastle legend, to wear the Newcastle No9 for years.
“Obviously, the scrutiny of the £35m, going to Liverpool, different mentality, not being around your family and friends and everything else… It was difficult for him.
“He moved with his then girlfriend and I think he found that difficult. The transition of being there (Liverpool) and not having the support system that he would have had in Newcastle.”