Thanks Fernando..?

[Arn]

Yeah right must be another Torres wearing the worlds most famous NO 9 shirt?
[ATTACH]1402[/ATTACH]

The problem is of course that he never said what Winter said he did but who cares eh

He said: "When you are joining a club, you want to do the best for yourself and that club, and that's all. Some people like to kiss the badge. They can do it.

"I was not a Liverpool fan or a Chelsea fan in Madrid. I was an Atletico fan. I still am.

"Maybe they're the only badge I will kiss."

So he never said that he didn't kissed the badge.

[Craig_H]

Yeah but he said 'Maybe theyre the only badge i will kiss', which implies he hasnt kissed the LFC badge.

[Rudo]

Yeah but he said 'Maybe theyre the only badge i will kiss', which implies he hasnt kissed the LFC badge.

Who cares? lets get behind our own players, Torres has gone, move on.

[Craig_H]

I DONT care. I'm just pointing out that he comes out with some tripe.

[Daniel 7]

I might just start being bored of the inevitable summer Pepe leaving speculation now. **** him. Judas. Lets just get players in who want to play for the club.

Thing is, we were always setting ourselves up for disappointment with the spanish influx. These players were never going to stay, they're not from Britain. To hope they would become Jan Molby foreign scousers in the age of the quick buck was folly. Sad though.

[Rudo]

I might just start being bored of the inevitable summer Pepe leaving speculation now. **** him. Judas. Lets just get players in who want to play for the club.

Thing is, we were always setting ourselves up for disappointment with the spanish influx. These players were never going to stay, they're not from Britain. To hope they would become Jan Molby foreign scousers in the age of the quick buck was folly. Sad though.

Good post

[Bender]

Traitor

[IN_RAFA_WE_TRUST]

Hope he gets injured and out for rest of season, infact I'd be delighted if his career went down the same path as Owen hargreaves.

[Fredo]

"Hodgson came with his ideas about football, his tactics and methods," Torres says. "I think maybe we never understood what Hodgson wanted or Hodgson never understood us. I think that is not his fault, he's a great man and a great manager."

[Vermilion]

HA, easy to say now eh matey. **** me, Torres is a proper bull****ter, how did'nt we see through this before, the bloke will say anything.

[Shaggy]

Dion Fanning on Torres..
'Too many broken promises'

The ill-fated Anfield era of Tom Hicks and George Gillett has yet another victim, writes Dion Fanning


By Dion Fanning
Sunday February 06 2011
Last Friday, Fernando Torres tried to explain what happened. How he had meant the things he once said about Liverpool. Yet his words had ceased to have meaning when it turned out that others didn't mean what they told him.

Liverpool supporters' sense of betrayal will be expressed at Stamford Bridge today but even on Friday, even with his excitement at the opportunities at Chelsea, Torres' feeling of betrayal was also palpable.

"There were too many things to think about, too many broken promises, too many false hopes -- but I am not responsible for that," he said during a compelling day of press obligations at Chelsea's Surrey training ground. "The only thing I have to do is play football and I accept that my performances were not the best, I realise that."

Torres' dissatisfaction began the summer Rafael Benitez sold Xabi Alonso and discovered that most of the profit would go to feeding Tom Hicks and George Gillett's debt. Torres recalled those years of promise when Liverpool finished second and reached the latter stages of the Champions League. Soon there would just be promises, then eventually a battlefield of broken promises.

At that time, when Liverpool promised so much, he said he never wanted to play for another English club. But he watched as the club he said he would never forsake became another club, torn apart by dysfunction and Shakespearean intrigue.

"I said that at that moment, I didn't think I would play for another club -- because at that moment Liverpool were giving me what they promised, but not now. I think one of the important points is in my first two seasons at the club, they played in the semi-finals of the Champions League and finished second in the Premier League, four points behind Man United. We were very, very close to being one of the top teams for a long time because everyone was together and everyone was moving in the right direction."

In the summer of 2009, that stopped. Football wants heroes and villains, supporters demand them as much as the media, but if Hicks and Gillett were the obvious bad guys, many others were playing a part, including those generally regarded as heroes.

In Benitez's final year, Torres became dissatisfied. The manager was blamed by those who spoke of dressing room discontent. The chain of command had been broken by Christian Purslow, who was close to some of the players who were unhappy. Torres wavered. Benitez knew who the unhappy players were and he knew who were more content. With Torres, he was never sure.

Many have been persuaded that Benitez was the problem but when he left it turned out that, imperfectly, he had been holding things together. Torres knew when this season began that it was getting worse.

In the summer, Liverpool had appointed Roy Hodgson after Kenny Dalglish's ambitions for the job were dismissed by Martin Broughton and Purslow. Off the field, Torres kept hearing stories that never came true. "The old owners were talking about selling the club too many times and during that time the team was being weakened because they were not focused on it."

Torres reflected on Friday that things might have been different if Dalglish rather than Hodgson had been appointed instead of patronisingly dealt with last summer. Dalglish's appointment last summer might have changed things.

"I don't know, that never happened. He came in the last month. It's always difficult to change the manager. Benitez was five years at Liverpool with a different style, always doing the same things. Hodgson came with his ideas about football, his tactics and methods. I think the fact is maybe we never understand what Hodgson wanted or Hodgson never understand us. I think that is not his fault, he's a great, great man and great manager."

Dalglish's arrival made a difference but by then it was too late. Liverpool had dropped into the relegation zone during Hodgson's time and Torres had spent the first half of the season chasing long balls, adapting to the tactics of a coach some of his team-mates were convinced was the solution. Now they were a club without Javier Mascherano and Xabi Alonso, key departures in Torres' view which pointed to a long transition. With Hodgson in charge, it began to look like an eternal transition.

"When Kenny Dalglish came, especially for the fans, there was some new hope because he knew the club. As a footballer and as a manager, he did great things for the club. I don't know, if he was manager in the summer, maybe it would have been different, maybe not."

There were moments on the field this season that left many convinced that the dissatisfaction with the owners and the broken promises had now fractured the dressing room. During the Merseyside derby at Goodison Park, Torres made a dismissive gesture towards Jamie Carragher which was, some believe, a reflection of their personal relationship.

Carragher was vocal again last week. Torres' sale might have been for the best if "he didn't 100 per cent want to be here". Nobody can question Carragher's desire to be at the club but many now have to ask if he should be.

It was "time for a change" he said when Benitez was sacked, even if the change only made things worse. Then, like now, he made some conciliatory public noises, but his private view reportedly was different.

Most, if not all, of those who contributed to the psychodrama at Liverpool have left. Carragher is the issue that needs to be confronted by Dalglish who has the powerbase to do it, a powerbase that may have intimidated those who felt he shouldn't get the job last summer.

"There is no romanticism in football anymore," Torres said on Friday but those who believed he had seen something more than success in Liverpool had made him the vessel for their dreams.

Last week, he seemed to trample on them. On Monday night, it was reported that he said he had now joined a big club. Football had its villain.

"Everyone is trying to turn my words. I will never say anything bad about Liverpool. I left a great club with the best history in the country and I come to another great club. In the last years, Chelsea has proved that they are one of the best clubs in the country and I have the possibility to join them. Liverpool has more history, it is a massive club but right now I think Chelsea have more options to win everything and are building a great history and future."

Certainly, he has decided that he had to be ruthless in his choice of club even if there was a sense of the romantic in his explanation for leaving Liverpool. Torres cared about playing for Liverpool but the club was no longer the club he loved.

Torres' sense of betrayal was profound but he also had to realise his own ambitions which, until Dalglish arrived, seemed further away at Liverpool. He thinks the club is building for the future while as a footballer he has to think of now.

Footballers sitting at a podium are never at their best. Usually they keep their heads down and roll through the platitudes. Torres didn't do that on Friday. He wanted to explain what had happened, he said, and there will be a time when he wants to do more explaining. "I have nothing to prove," he said, "I only want to win trophies."

Things had gone wrong for him at Liverpool and his unhappiness was profound and on this, if on little else, he agreed with Jamie Carragher that it suited everyone for him to leave.

"I'm sure it was the best option for both. Obviously I was not playing the same way because I was feeling the apprehension about everything that happened, the sale and all those things. I am sure they have spent the money well. There is no reason to keep one player who wants to leave."

Liverpool were left with those familiar conflicting feelings of hope and despair. The signings of Luis Suarez and Carroll made them feel good again. But Purslow's signing of Joe Cole last summer had made them feel good too. Cole's arrival was seen as a statement when in fact all it did was demonstrate again Purslow's arrogant clumsiness when it came to meddling in football.

Carroll is worth the price Liverpool paid for him if he delivers on his potential. His potential is not the problem, his personality is the danger. Carroll too made an impressive debut in front of the media last week. He explained himself and said he was a straightforward man who liked a drink "at the right time". The right time for a footballer to have a drink was about 1985. Any player who begins a career explaining when and why he likes to drink may be in danger of fulfilling some old stereotypes of the English footballer.

His progress is astonishing. Towards the end of Rafael Benitez's time at Liverpool, the club were working on a deal to sign Carroll for about £5m. Then Benitez was sacked and Purslow entered the transfer market.

John W Henry's explanation of the way Liverpool worked in the market last week made sense. Liverpool may have overspent but when the Hicks and Gillett years involved even greater sums going out of the club in interest payments, Andy Carroll becomes a risk worth taking. Henry explained that Liverpool wanted "Carroll plus £15 million for Torres". Yet in pointing out that the sale of Torres and Ryan Babel financed the purchase of Carroll and Suarez, he may have revealed that the club were preparing for Torres' departure long before last weekend.

Torres informed the club, as he said, ten or 12 days before the story broke last Thursday. According to informed sources, Torres was told by the club that any release of the information at this stage could increase the price for Suarez so only when that deal was close to completion did the story come out. Torres, with the last-minute request, was easily cast as the villain, but this was just another contortion he had to absorb and he had become used to them.

The decision to sign for Chelsea seemed to make little sense. Torres sees it differently. He sees Chelsea as a rejuvenated team because they have Fernando Torres. The stunning self-belief may not be misplaced. "They were the only club I wanted to fight for."

In the long-term, he will be Didier Drogba's replacement. In Benitez's final year, the statistics available to the manager showed that Torres was working less and when his former manager spoke last week of how clubs wanted to buy Torres last year for £70m, he might not have been speaking in the abstract.

Torres says he was surprised by the friendliness at his new club and again that might have been the change from the previous months of isolation when he became disconnected at Liverpool. He was the only Liverpool player not to attend the Christmas party, which was seen as an example of his isolation, or he may have just decided not to go where he wasn't welcome.

Torres' mistake was to leave Liverpool when the club were feeling good again and put in jeopardy the supporters' fragile sense of hope.

He believes he can win the trophies at Chelsea he wanted to win at Liverpool. The years of discord and destruction by Hicks and Gillett and others are still claiming victims. Torres may not be the last to decide that if he wants to fulfil his ambitions, he will have to leave.

"If the promises had been true, Liverpool would have been fighting with Manchester United and Chelsea so you never know, maybe I would still be there. We were very close to fighting with these teams but two years after, we were not."

Torres is closer now and he may be closer to the player Liverpool signed nearly four years ago. But he is not the player the fans turned to for hope.

"In time they will realise what I did for the club. I couldn't get to the target we had to win trophies with them. I'm sure I did my best for the club. Maybe now they can start a new era."

Last week, the old one claimed another casualty.

- Dion Fanning

[Craig_H]

Nobody questions what you did for the club. But maybe, in time, you will realise what you did TO the club. From the sulking, to the lack of unity, to the lies and finally, to the late defection.

Sorry Fernando, we believed your words before, but now they are just hollow nonsense. Stop trying to talk your way out of it and maybe focus on some plastic flags instead.

[Fernandinho]

Loyalty doesn't end all of a sudden, especially by making a backlip to a rival club.

[tsb]

Oh dear god, he hasn't even kicked a ball for them

I got a lovely reply from a Chelsea goon for my comment on that vid. The words murdering ******* and bin dipper cropped up.

Must have struck a chord!

[rodo]

as mentioned elsewhere quality from stephen graham

http://www.101greatgoals.com/soccer-am-the-football-league-goals-of-2010-steven-graham-unloads-on-fernando-torres-celtics-crossbar-challenge/82619/