The former Reds defender was “shocked” when the Spanish striker made his record move in January 2011, and was not surprised when things turned sour
Liverpool knew they had “kidded” Chelsea when selling Fernando Torres for £50 million ($62m) and that the other players were “shocked” they received such a huge transfer fee, according to Jamie Carragher.
Torres moved from Liverpool to Chelsea on deadline day of the January transfer window in 2011 for what was then a record fee between two Premier League clubs. He did, however, fail to capture the scoring form which had made him such a feared striker at Anfield.
The Spaniard’s move to Chelsea is now regarded as one of the biggest English transfer flops of all time – which was no surprise to his former Liverpool team-mate Carragher, who said those on Merseyside were aware that the Blues were buying a player past his peak.
Carragher told Sky Sports : “I couldn’t believe it. I knew we had kidded Chelsea. Those last 12 months, he was a shadow of his former self.
“For 18 months at Liverpool, he was the best striker in the world, and I think he had such a good record against Chelsea that obviously stuck in the owner’s mind. Chelsea at that stage, I think the owner was still buying players who he wanted, Shevchenko was another case.
“What happened that was fortunate for Liverpool, that season we played Chelsea, and we weren’t having a great season and Torres was having a really poor time but he scored two against Chelsea. I think the decision was made then – as soon as January comes, we are going for Fernando Torres.
“£50m was major money at that stage and we were all in a state of shock, we could not believe we had got £50m. We ended up doing something similar ourselves in buying Andy Carroll for £35m, but we did get Luis Suarez out of it.
“I was not surprised at all that it didn’t go well.”
Carragher was speaking on an online chat with former Chelsea captain John Terry, who said he and his Stamford Bridge team-mates were excited about the arrival of Torres, and were expecting the Spanish forward to fire them to a period of sustained success.
Although Torres did have some success at Stamford Bridge – most notably helping them to their only Champions League triumph in 2012 – he struggled in three-and-a-half years in London before being sold to AC Milan for a cut-price fee in January 2015 following a loan spell.
Terry said: “From a Chelsea point of view, he was the one I hated playing against, he always seemed to score, whether at Anfield or the Bridge. He was the one player Roman would always ask about.
“Yossi [Benayoun] was close to him and told us ‘Fernando is on his way’. We were like, ‘no way’. We thought we were going to dominate the Premier League and Europe for the next five or six years. This is it. That was our thought from playing against him.”
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