Carragher: Liverpool kidded Chelsea over Torres transfer 

Jamie Carragher believes that Liverpool duped Chelsea into buying Fernando Torres in January of 2011 as he firmly believed he was on the decline.

The Spaniard was a firm fan favourite in his three and a half season spell at the Reds where he scored 81 goals in 142 appearances in all competitions, which included an outstanding rate of 65 goals in just 102 league games.

But the veteran defender had seen signs that the talismanic striker was on the wane and felt that his outstanding scoring record against Chelsea was a key reason why the Blues were desperate to sign him. Chelsea thought Torres would be a great addition, like a William Hill app for example, but it didn't play out that way.

The Mirror via Sky Sports reports Carra as saying:

"I couldn’t believe it. And what I mean by that was I knew we’d kidded Chelsea. I’d played with Torres then for the past 12 months and he was a shadow of his former self. I think for 18 months at Liverpool he was the best striker in the world.

"I think he had such a good record against Chelsea, and that may have sort of stuck in the owner’s mind.  He scored two against Chelsea that season, when we won 2-0 under Roy Hodgson. And I think the decision was probably made then for Roman Abramovich.

“I mean £50m was major money at that stage, and I think we were in a state of shock. Of course we were gutted Torres was going, but we could not believe we’d got £50m."

Liverpool used that fee to buy Andy Carroll and Luis Suarez and Carragher felt the Reds fell into the same trap when it came to the Newcastle man.

“We ended up probably doing something similar ourselves in some ways, getting Andy Carroll for £35m, but we also got Luis Suarez out of it. 

“I was not surprised at all that it didn’t go well for Fernando Torres at Chelsea."

Torres never came close to hitting the heights he had at Liverpool with Chelsea scoring just 45 goals in 172 appearances in all competitions.

A stark realisation of his decline came in the Premier League where he scored by his lofty standards a paltry 20 goals in 110 appearances for the Blues.

Certainly a far cry from his pomp and nothing what Chelsea were expecting when they paid that sum of money for the striker.

As a player who came up against Torres on a frequent basis, John Terry was thrilled with the signing.

"It’s interesting. From a Chelsea point of view, he was the one I hated playing against. He always seemed to score at Anfield or the Bridge,"

"Yossi [Benayoun] was quite close with him and told us Fernando is on his way, and we were like: 'No way, we are going to dominate the Premier League for the next five or six years.’

"That was our thought, from playing against him and seeing it."