The year-old's transfer smashed the previous British record set less than an hour earlier when Liverpool paid Newcastle 35 million pounds 56 million dollars to sign England striker Andy Carroll as Torres's replacement. Torres, who has won the World Cup and European Championships with Spain, had asked to leave Liverpool on Friday when news of Chelsea's first bid for the striker became public knowledge.
Liverpool rejected that request, but Blues owner Roman Abramovich was determined to sign the former Atletico Madrid star and the Anfield club eventually accepted Chelsea's huge offer after securing Carroll's signature. Torres, who scored seven times in seven appearances against Chelsea, was keen to leave Liverpool after the club slumped out of the Champions League last season and then struggled in the first half of this campaign.
This is an area where Chelsea are weakest, as the defeat to Liverpool showed. They are an incredibly cohesive unit and every move has the look of a well-worked training-ground set piece. If those do not work, they lack a creative player in the midfield who can find teammates in dangerous areas of the pitch.
While the Pensioners midfield is their greatest asset, it is also a liability against teams that are well organised and who, most importantly, pack midfield. Even if Carlo Ancelotti had acted more quickly to bring on Malouda and Kalou, the game was up, as both of those players are wide forwards rather than wide midfielders. Thus, the personnel up front would make no difference to the outcome of the game, as midfield was where the game needed to be changed.
This immediately points to the two areas Ancelotti would have strengthened before even looking at bringing in another centre forward, particularly one with such a poor track record at finding a partner. The Italian can rightly feel aggrieved with Abramovich.
The first example was last March when he told Ancelotti he would be sacked if he did not deliver the league title. This effectively sent the message out to the players that, with anything less than a percent success rate, they would have a new boss. Every player worth his salt knows that this demand is impossible over the fullness of time. Undaunted, he soon became the first Red since Fowler in to break the goal barrier and quickly became the new idol of the Kop.
The goals continued to flow despite injury troubles - but in January he shocked Liverpool fans around the world by asking for a transfer to Premier League rivals Chelsea. Such was his prodigious talent he was named the best U14 player in Europe following his performances in the Nike Cup.
Torres became the youngest player in Atletico history upon making his debut in May He went on to bag 21 goals in after being named Vicente Calderon's youngest ever skipper at the age of Seven months later he chalked up a first international goal against Italy. The forward would go on to net three times in the World Cup in Germany. However, Torres was lucky to be on the pitch as earlier on in the game, Torres scratched Vertonghen's face. On 22 October , Torres made his th start for Chelsea, and marked the occasion with two goals in a Champions League win over Schalke.
Less than a week later, Torres scored a last minute winner, capitalising from a mistake by Joe Hart in a win over Man City. On 31 August , Torres joined A. Milan on a two-year loan deal. The move was later made permanent in December, ending an almost four year spell at th club. Chelsea FC Wiki Explore. Featured content. Recent blog posts Forum.
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