Jamie Carragher has admitted that Liverpool players were ‘shocked’ their club managed to sell Fernando Torres to Chelsea for £50million – and says they knew they had ‘kidded’ their rivals.
The Spaniard’s big-money move across the Premier League in January 2011 was a then-record fee, but Liverpool hero Carragher insists that Torres wasn’t the same fearsome striker as he had been a year earlier.
‘I couldn’t believe it,’ he told Sky Sports, on a call with Chelsea legend John Terry. ‘I knew we had kidded Chelsea. Those last 12 months, he was a shadow of his former self.
Fernando Torres (right) cost Chelsea a mammoth £50million when he signed from Liverpool
He was a deadly goalscorer at Liverpool but never recaptured that form at Stamford Bridge
‘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.’
Jamie Carragher says Liverpool players knew they had ‘kidded’ Chelsea with the £50m fee
Torres endured a tough spell in the capital before heading to pastures new at AC Milan
Torres enjoyed the best spell of his career at Liverpool, netting 24 league goals in his debut campaign, before performing well in another three after that.
At Chelsea, though, his form took a nosedive and he only managed 20 goals in 110 league appearances.
The move is now widely regarded as one of the biggest flops in Premier League history, while Liverpool look back fondly at Torres’ time on Merseyside.
Torres then ended his European footballing career at his boyhood club Atletico Madrid
