Will Torres be running with the Blues?
Liverpool’s American owners, Fenway Sports Group are in a bit of a dilemma with the selling of Fernando Torres. Torres is a fans favourite as well as a key player for Liverpool. Mind you, that might not last since he has submitted a transfer request and clearly isn’t happy at Liverpool. There could be a number of reasons for this, one I think that is likely is Liverpool not being able to guarantee him Champions League football. His dissatisfaction can be seen both by him wanting to leave as well asking Liverpool to accept a Chelsea bid.
Maybe they’d want to use the money from the transfer to pay off debts or to fund other transfers. It is in the Liverpool owner John Henry’s interest to keep the fans on their side so as to avoid the farce that occurred with the previous American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillet so he’ll try and handle this carefully – if that means sell Torres, you can bet he’ll make sure the supporters know how hard he tried to make him stay.
With the signing of Luis Suarez they have a younger player and possible replacement for Torres already – one who is just as good at finishing and creating chances, shown by his record of 111 goals in 159 appearances for Ajax. His international record holds up well for a young player, with one goal in every three internationals and having scored 10 times in 30 games, he was one of the stars of the Uruguay team that finished 4th in the 2010 World Cup. I think Liverpool have pulled off a bargain for £23 million, from what I have seen him do in Holland and for Uruguay I would say Suarez is the most promising striker to come out of Ajax since Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Klaas-JanHuntelaar. With Suarez they also have an excuse to offload Torres as they may say they need to get the money back from that transfer to fund any more.
Clearly now that Suarez has arrived Liverpool will have to at least be thinking of letting Torres leave since an unhappy player is good to no one. Morale is a very important aspect in a striker’s game so an unhappy Torres is not as deadly and sharp as a happy Torres.
To me it looks like no coincidence that a day before the Suarez deal they announce they rejected Chelsea’s £35 million bid for Torres. I think it is possible they released the details of this bid to show they are playing hard ball with Chelsea and won’t accept their initial offer. They might well be advertising the fact that £35 million is not enough for a player of Torres’ calibre or just advertising this bid to invite other clubs to make better offers, after all, isn’t it more likely they’d sell Torres to a club outside the Premier League?
However the American owners may have to eat a slice of Boston “humble” pie, so to speak, as Torres will not be of much use to Liverpool if he is unhappy being there so they might well have to lower their ideal transfer price. This could mean they might have to accept a bid from Chelsea that they consider to be below their actual value of him. Whatever happens let’s hope we don’t end up with another Robinho transfer saga – or rush to get our ‘Torres’ shirts printed.
I hope that Chelsea buy Torres to make them an ever bigger threat to their Champions League and Premiership rivals. However I hope Chelsea only spend as much as they believe is right to keep in line with UEFA’s spending policies. And obviously I hope having Torres would be Ancelotti’s choice, even if we keep hearing he doesn’t get to make the decisions. I hope Chelsea find a way to accommodate Torres without upsetting the balance or atmosphere.
Whatever happens in this fascinating transfer saga, remember to Keep the Blue Flag Flying High!
Written by TCB reader Nick Winfield
Blue is the colour
