With West Ham United set to sign Andy Carroll for £15m from Liverpool, Football Burp got wondering: what else can fifteen million of the Queen’s pounds get you these days?

As such, here are ten things that Sam Allardyce and his Hammers could spend/could have spent the money on instead…(psst: click on each thing in question to read more about it)…

Ten things that cost the same as Andy Carroll

1. TV rights company Digital Rights Group, which distributes TV shows such as The Inbetweeners, Doc Martin, Stephen Fry’s Kingdom, Criminal Justice, Sea Patrol and Singing Bee

2. A 1966 triptych by Francis Bacon showing his Soho party-loving muse Isabel Rawsthorne

3. Betfair’s European ad account

4. The Little Chef chain of roadside restaurants

5. High-speed broadband across areas in Coventry, Warwickshire and Solihull

6. The closure fees of high street electrical retailer Comet

7. A 90-metre bridge in Aberdeen, including realignment work to a 2.5km stretch of approach road

8. Replenishing the Army’s stock of supersonic Hellfire missiles used by Apache helicopters

9. A ‘steel cow’ – an anaerobic digester machine, designed to convert sewage sludge into a clean source of energy – to be built at Worksop’s Manton Sewage Treatment Works

10. A 4,000-ton production line that will create 30 new jobs at the Telford plant of car parts manufacturers Stadco

If Carroll remains at Upton Park for the duration of his supposed six-year contract, all the while on his reported £100,000 a week wages, then the Irons could ultimately end up ‘shelling out’ £46m for the England target man.

In that spirit, here are a few things they could have for that whopping figure…

Paying off the retiring boss of Guinness owner Diageo

The second phase of Birmingham City University’s new campus, which will feature “a student support hub as well as a new library, teaching and IT space, plus other student-facing support faculties”

The total assets seized in ten years from “underworld bosses and petty criminals” by Kent police under the Proceeds of Crime Act, including Bentleys, Rolex watches and a Harley-Davidson motorbike

The total assets seized under the very same act in Wales over the same amount of time, quite remarkably

The amount in gift aid claimed by the Cup Trust

News just in: West Ham have been given the green light to convert Andy Carroll into a 54,000-seater stadium.