Fernando Torres, Chelsea's Number Nine?

I need to begin this by stating that I love The Tomkins Times. I’ve been a subscriber since the start of last season and, as well as the excellent articles by Tomkins and guest writers, I find the comments by other members well worth a read and occasionally worth engaging in debate. The best thing about the site for me is the way it holds a mirror up to you and forces you to modify the way you think about the game. If you are irrational in your views, the holes in your arguments will be brought to your attention. If your opinions are not evidence-based or stem from hearsay, they will be exposed as lacking substance. I find myself constantly learning from others who help me form far more balanced opinions than I could without them.

That being the case, I have been really surprised by the ferocity in some of the posts on there over the last 48 hours. Over the last two seasons, TTT has been a place of reason and rational debate. Once news of Torres’ transfer request broke, it became a place of craziness – temporarily at least.

For the first 24 hours, it seemed a lynch mob were ready to march on the Torres residence with pitch forks and torches in hand.

At that stage, the known facts were:
> Chelsea had bid £35m for Torres
> Liverpool rejected the bid and stated that the player was not for sale
> Torres urged Liverpool to negotiate with Chelsea
> Torres submitted a written transfer request
> Liverpool rejected the transfer request and told Torres he would be expected to honour his commitment to the club and the fans
> Liverpool publically broke the news of Torres’ transfer request

At that stage, no one knew Torres’ motives in submitting the transfer request. No one knew the club’s motivation for publically announcing Torres’ transfer request. No one knew how the scenario would play out.

Despite that, people on TTT were labelling him a ‘Judas’, telling him to ‘fuck off’ and saying the club should ‘get rid ASAP’. People were speculating that Gerrard and Carragher were to blame for bullying him out of the club even though not a single scrap of evidence existed to corroborate such a claim. People also claimed that through his transfer request, Torres had irreparably broken his relationship with the supporters and his fellow players.

However this story ends, at that stage such claims were premature and unwarranted while the personal criticism and insults were completely out of order.

This Premiership season has already seen Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez submit transfer requests at Man United and City respectively. Both are still with their clubs. The Rooney saga was one I followed particularly closely due to my friendships with a couple of people who are regrettably Man U fans. At one point, they were labelling Rooney ‘Judas’ – and that was probably the nicest thing they were saying about him – but now they have welcomed him back into their fold. They say they’ll never fully trust him again but they’re glad their club kept him because he is a quality player.

Torres is also a quality player and for that reason, my reaction to hearing about the transfer request was to hope the club could convince him to stay. I would rather have Torres stay despite handing in a transfer request than sold because of it. Quite frankly, I don’t need to believe that Torres is 100% committed to the club, a top guy and a die-hard Liverpool fan; I just want him to play well and score goals galore for us.

I look back at the summer of 2005 when Steven Gerrard submitted a transfer request. His exit seemed inevitable. At that time, people said he had burned his bridges irreparably. One idiot was even burning an effigy of him on SKY Sports News. After his U-turn, people said he should be stripped of the captaincy and before our first game of the season at home to TNS, all the talk was about how the fans would respond to him. Some fans booed him initially but then he scored a hat-trick and never looked back. By the end of that campaign, he was PFA Player of the Year, had an FA Cup Final named after him and to most fans was our ‘Captain Fantastic’ once again.

Until Torres signs for another club, he is still our player and there is every possibility that history could repeat itself so I just don’t see the point in slating him yet.

People seemed to take the transfer request very personally, interpreting it as him wanting to leave Liverpool. Until I’m presented with evidence to the contrary, I can’t accept that his motivation is simply to leave Liverpool. If that were the case, why didn’t he put in a transfer request before Chelsea bid for him? As I see it, a rival club made a bid for him and, faced with a very specific opportunity, he thought it would be a good move for him. If West Ham or Birmingham had bid for him, I doubt he would have implored the club to negotiate with them. This is about Torres wanting to join Chelsea; not him wanting to leave Liverpool at all costs. Of course, to join Chelsea he has to leave Liverpool but it’s not as though he would join any club just to get away from Anfield.

We can dispute whether the grass will turn out to be greener at Stamford Bridge but clearly he thinks it would be. We don’t know what his personal experience is and has been like at Anfield so we’re not in a position to judge. If, for example, he is/was not getting on with certain dominant characters in the dressing room, it might make sense to him to take the opportunity not to be in the presence of those same characters anymore. There is no suggestion whatsoever that he wants to leave because of the supporters whom he has always spoken about in complimentary terms yet some supporters seem to think he is giving big ‘V’s to them.

People are asking “Why Chelsea of all clubs?” Well, firstly Chelsea are the only team that have bid for him but I would ask why not Chelsea? It’s not like he wanted to join the Mancs. Our rivalry with Chelsea is nowhere near as bitter as our rivalry with them and in truth it only really began when (a) they became good on the back of Abramovich’s wealth and (b) Jose Mourinho kicked things into overdrive.

Personally, I was glad they won the League last season as it stopped the Mancs from getting to 19 before us and I would be glad if they won it again this season (not that they have a cat in hell’s chance) for the same reason.

I would be far more concerned if Torres wanted to ditch us for Spurs because that, to me, would not make sense but I think that most neutral supporters would see Chelsea as a more attractive option to a player than Liverpool at this time – despite Chelsea’s poor campaign which is, by the way, far less poor than ours.

One poster wrote: “He has made it clear he does not wish to wear the LFC shirt again.” No, he hasn’t! As far as I am aware, he has not told the club: “Sell me or I won’t play for you again”. He thinks a move to Chelsea would be better for him but that doesn’t automatically mean he thinks staying with us would be a bad alternative.

The same poster wrote: “Torres has shown his true personality as a fickle, glory hunter”. Well I disagree.

For over a year I’ve been reading that we had to get rid of Gillett and Hicks and find an owner who will spend some serious money on improving our squad or Torres and Reina will leave; that Hodgson had to be sacked ASAP or Torres and Reina will leave; we must get back into the Champions League or Torres and Reina will leave, etc. We’ve spent the last year justifying the player wanting to leave and yet as soon as he hands in a transfer request we start labelling him a “glory hunter” or suggesting his move is purely motivated by money.

OK, Gillett and Hicks have gone, as has Hodgson but we are still not going to qualify for the Champions League this season and who knows what the situation will be next year. Right now, no one even knows who will be manager next year. It’s clear the squad is thin and there are probably [at least] five other Premiership teams with stronger first XIs than ours. Signing Suarez is a good start but not proof in itself that FSG will invest the sort of money that it will take to get this team back to the levels we reached under Rafa between 2007 and 2009.

Bearing in mind Torres will be close to 29 by the time we’re back in the Champions League IF we qualify next season, I can see why Chelsea might appear a better prospect than Liverpool to a player in his peak years. Chelsea are in the Champions League this season. They are the defending Premiership champions and FA Cup holders. During Torres’ time at the club, Chelsea have won 2 FA Cups, a Premiership title and reached a Champions League Final. Liverpool have won nothing.

That last sentence is important to note. If anyone thinks our chances of silverware will be harmed by losing Torres, while I understand the logic behind the thought, the fact is Liverpool have won nothing with Fernando Torres at the club.

You may argue that our failure to win honours with him at the club was because the team around him wasn’t good enough. Well it was good enough to finish second in 2009 with him playing only half a season and it was good enough to be minutes away from reaching a Europa League Final last season without him. Without criticising or blaming him for his injury problems, a tiny bit more of a contribution from him might just have seen the team lifting silverware.

After all, similar fears were aired when Owen left us in 2004. 9 months later we were European Champions. In the 7 full seasons Owen was our player, we won 4 major honours (if you consider the League Cup a major honour) and suffered 5 trophyless seasons. In the 2 seasons after he left we won a major honour in each. That was despite receiving a fraction of Owen’s real transfer value to reinvest in the squad which wouldn’t be the case if Torres goes.

If reinvested effectively, £50m would buy an adequate replacement and enable other areas of the team to be strengthened. If someone could guarantee the signings would be successful, I would rather have two £25m players the right side of 26 than keep Torres. I’m sure FSG are looking at the situation and considering what outcome better suits the long-term interests of our club.

The worst case scenario is that we have a few trophyless years and no Champions League football without Torres instead of having trophyless years and no Champions League football with him but there is every chance this could be beneficial to our long term rival. We could end up with a good young team that comes into its own in a few years as Torres’ natural abilities are on the wane.

I don’t buy into this ‘Judas’ crap. Michael Owen is a ‘Judas’; Torres is not. What Owen did was deliberately run down his contract so he could move to Real on the cheap. He left the club without a quality striker and without adequate funds to buy a replacement. He directly harmed the club. If Torres is sold it will be for his full value and a significant profit on what we paid for him even taking inflation into account. Owen could still have been forgiven but then he signed for our bitterest rivals knowing it would be regarded as the ultimate act of treachery by the fans that once adored him. That was the ultimate dishonour. Signing for Chelsea is not the same as signing for them.

If it was, Yossi Benayoun would have been slated in the summer when he left us for Stamford Bridge. As it was, people just accepted it and got on with it. What’s the difference between Yossi going there and Fernando going there? As I see it, Yossi wasn’t as good or as key to us as Fernando (a factor reflected in the two players’ transfer values). If Torres is disloyal for wanting to swap us for them, why wasn’t Yossi?

And what about other players who have moved on at the time of their choosing? Why does Peter Crouch receive a rousing reception from the Kop when he returns despite turning down a decent contract and forcing us to sell him to Portsmouth? Why isn’t he a ‘Judas’ or a ‘traitor’?

And why was there no animosity towards Ryan Babel who moved to Hoffenheim this week? Babel arrived with a relatively large price tag and bags of potential but left for a loss having ultimately flopped. After continually letting down the club and its fans with performances that could be described as average at best, most supporters were glad to see him go. Had Torres flopped, the only animosity would have been aimed at the man who signed him and no one would care that he was leaving. Basically his offence was to be a fantastic player who gave excellent service to the club and who enhanced his transfer value. Torres improved while with us; Babel regressed. Torres worked hard for us; Babel was more concerned about his twitter account and his rapping skills. Torres gave full value for his transfer fee and wages; Babel ripped us off. Who deserves the most criticism: Torres or Babel?

If Torres does go, it’s not the end of the world. A shame, yes, but far from the death of Liverpool FC.