Re: Torres - Chelsea 35mil Bid turned down
I think I agree with this, for the same reasoning.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/liverpool/8290470/Liverpool-cannot-afford-to-lose-the-battle-to-keep-Fernando-Torres.html
Liverpool cannot afford to lose the battle to keep Fernando Torres
First Cesc Fabregas, then Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tévez, now Fernando Torres. Patience tested, faith exploded, in north London, both sides of Manchester, and finally on Merseyside. Heroes are not what they used to be.
By Rory Smith 10:30PM GMT 29 Jan 2011
In the space of six months, all three of English football’s historical triumvirate - as well as its future force - have seen those idols their fans treasure above all others threaten to reject that devotion.
Fabregas asked Arsène Wenger to allow him to move to Barcelona; Rooney informed Manchester United he would not sign a new contract; Tévez pleaded with Manchester City to release him from his £160,000-a-week bondage at Eastlands.
And now Torres, first “verbally intimating†to Liverpool that he wishes to join Chelsea, then handing in a transfer request.
There will be no sympathy washing down the M62, nor emanating from the Emirates: schadenfreude is the order of the day. After all, few laughed as loudly as those on the Kop when their rivals’ talismans showed their true colours.
Liverpool fans, of course, believe their pain hurts more than most, just as United and City and Arsenal fans did, or even Chelsea’s, when John Terry fluttered his eyelashes at Eastlands 18 months ago. Such is the nature of support. In this case, it is easy to see why.
It was hard, after all, to begrudge Fabregas, a boyhood Barcelona fan, a move back to Catalonia. Rooney - who, crucially, never handed in a transfer request, nor threatened to do so - has nevertheless hardly been portrayed as a paragon of footballing virtue. Tévez joined City for their riches: they must live by the sword and die by the sword, even if it is gilded.
But Torres is different. This is the player who insisted that, upon departing Atlético Madrid, he would only do so for Liverpool. This is the player who bore the legend “You’ll Never Walk Alone†on an armband while still playing in Spain. This is the player who spoke openly, as recently as October 2009, of Liverpool being the only team he would play for in this country.
“I hope to play for many years or maybe even finish my career here,†he said. “Liverpool is my English team and I don’t think about playing for another one.â€
And yet now he is not only contemplating a move to Chelsea, but has destabilised the club he once professed to love with just three days left of the transfer window. On the day Liverpool’s owners, Fenway Sports Group, announced the £22.8?million signing of Luis Suarez as a signal of their ambition, Torres rocked Anfield to its foundations.
That is not something which his disaffected devotees can pin on FSG or Kenny Dalglish. They cannot even blame Roy Hodgson, whose regime sapped so much of Torres’s enthusiasm for life on Merseyside. Rafael BenÃtez, that scapegoat for all of Liverpool’s ills, likewise.
True, FSG’s failure to provide the “quick fix†spending spree Torres and Pepe Reina want has hardly convinced either player they can fulfil their ambitions at Anfield. True, Torres - and Reina - disliked life under Hodgson. True, his relationship with BenÃtez had grown strained.
But the blame for Torres’s state of mind appears to lie at the cowboy-booted feet, in the snakeoil-selling hands and the misleading mouths of Tom Hicks and George Gillett. It was those Americans who promised Torres the world and delivered nothing. It was those Americans who stripped Anfield of its ambition, turning it into a club who existed to win trophies into a club which did well simply to exist.
Torres, for at least a year, has instructed his agents to sound out likely destinations for a move: Manchester City and Barcelona have maintained a watching brief, but it is Chelsea who have hovered persistently, waiting for their chance.
They thought they had it in the summer, when his representatives tipped them the wink, fluttered their eyelashes, and declared he would be willing to move. Torres, when push came to shove, committed his future to Liverpool. He had never considered leaving, he said.
That he had is confirmed in his contract, a clause allowing him to depart for £50?million inserted by the then-managing director, Christian Purslow, should Liverpool remain outside of the Champions League places come summer. To Purslow, that clause safeguarded the club from losing its prized asset on the cheap and, crucially, before a takeover. As soon as FSG arrived, it looked like a time bomb.
It exploded on Friday night, as Torres handed in his transfer request. Here, too, even greater pain: he did not want to move to his boyhood club, or to more familiar climes, or to force his team’s owners to invest.
No, instead he wished to sign for Chelsea. One of those English teams he had said he would not countenance turning out for. A team who, it could be argued, are in need of rebuilding almost as much as Liverpool. A team who look highly unlikely to fulfil his desire for a league title this season, and whose chances of European glory are only marginally less slim. Their prospects may be brighter than Liverpool’s, but they are still an ageing side.
That Torres finds them more appealing than remaining on Merseyside says a lot. Not for FSG, but for Hicks and Gillett. Such is the damage they have done. Torres knows how long the rebuilding of a shattered club will take. He grew up at Colchonero, after all. He bears the weight of Atlético Madrid in his soul. He feels he does not have that time.
These Americans, these new Americans, are rather different to their predecessors, though. They despair at the lawlessness of European football; as of last night, there was every indication that they would continue to refuse the striker a move, that they would countenance the idea of keeping him against his will.
It is a crucial battle: City kept Tévez, United kept Rooney, Arsenal kept Fabregas, Chelsea retained Terry. It seems unlikely Liverpool and Torres will experience a detente, as in all of those cases. But to lose him would confirm their place outside of England’s elite. It would prove Torres right. Liverpool cannot afford to be different.
For their future, they must show Torres he is wrong.
