Moving on: Torres quit Liverpool for Chelsea for a
record £50million signing on fee
Fernando Torres has revealed his lack of
enthusiasm at Liverpool
forced him to
join Chelsea
- although he has run the risk of upsetting his new
team, admitting the Barclays Premier League champions are a smaller
club, in terms of history, compared to the
Reds.
The World Cup winning Spain striker quit Anfield on the
final day of the January transfer window leaving for Stamford
Bridge for a British transfer record fee of £50million.
After three-and-a-half years on Merseyside,
the 26-year-old insists he needed to move to London to reignite his
love of the game and added that Liverpool's future 'looked
black'.
'Money was not important. I left to improve
sporting-wise,' Torres told Spanish radio station Cadena
Ser.
'I thought I would stay one more year and take it as a
transition season. 'But a time comes when you lose
enthusiasm, you see those in the Spanish national team are playing
at a different level.
"You come back ready for a good season with your club but you
see the reality that this goes very slowly and the expectations
they set out at the start of the season are not real.
"I had three special years at Liverpool but in the last six
months I lost that happiness, that dream, the desire, the will to
have targets and goals."
'Then when everything looked black, Chelsea came and
showed a real interest.'
Torres is nevertheless grateful to his former club despite
the fans turning on him by labelling him a 'judas' and burning
replica 'Torres 9' shirts in anger at his departure to a rival
club.
Walk on by: Liverpool fans have turned on their former
idol Torres since he left for Chelsea
He added: 'Liverpool will always be very special
to me. Because of its history, Liverpool is a bigger club but it's
going through a difficult time.
'Chelsea is like Manchester United, the strongest over the
last 10 years. 'One is not better than the other, I'm
just happy to have had the fortune of playing for both of
them.
'I have been pleasantly surprised by the atmosphere in the
Chelsea changing room. I thought it would be more distant but the
atmosphere is very good, they laugh, they joke. It's
nice.'
Kopites have turned their backs on their former idol after his
£50million move to the Blues.
Particularly after they heard Torres claim last week that
Chelsea - with a fraction of Liverpool's trophy haul and fanbase
around the planet - were a bigger club than the Reds.
Now it will be curious to see how his words go down with Chelsea
fans who have been taunted mercilessly over the years by Kopites
about their lack of history.
Torres revealed Anfield coaches Sammy Lee and Steve Clarke -
himself a former Chelsea hero - tried to convince him to stay.
He added: "The moment I knew of Chelsea's interest I was first
in the training ground and told the sporting director and the
manager, I explained my situation. The No 2 and No 3 Sammy Lee and
Steve Clarke have both been players so they understood my position
as a player but insisted that this was not the moment.
"I didn't choose the moment. When everything was black and the
season was going from bad to worse; when nothing went according to
my expectations neither on a personal nor on a collective level;
when you see that there are six months left that will be very long
and very hard.
"And when you see a door open like that of Chelsea with a firm
interest and strong there was only one possible and realistic
option and that was to join them."
Action man: Torres believes he will rediscover his love
for football at Stamford Bridge
Torres is currently back in Madrid preparing for Spain's
friendly with Colombia at the Bernabeu on Wednesday night and he
admits it is nice to be leaving all the transfer talk behind for a
short period.
'These past 10 days have been very intense and it still
is,' Torres said.
'Everything has gone so quickly and it's as though I have
a lot of information in my head.
Game in Spain: Torres is back in his native Madrid for
the World Cup winners' friendly against Colombia
'It seems that a month has gone by instead of a
week. 'I want to enjoy playing with the national team
because we are champions of everything. 'This game is
good for me to disconnect.'
Torres, a figure of contempt for millions of fans that used to
idolize him at Anfield and around the world, admitted the way the
transfer was handled has left him with a bitter taste in the
mouth.
Images of Liverpool fans buring shirts bearing his name in
Merseyside have gone around the world and the striker was keen to
protect his reputation.
Anfield boss Kenny Dalglish has been dismissive of Torres but
the Spaniard went to great lengths to avoid any further
controversy.
He added: "If there was no camera they wouldn't have burnt the
shirts with my name. As for the statements of the manager each of
us is free to do what they want.
"This departure was not fair, in the eyes of the fans above
all.
"They didn't want to hear the truth or my truth. But that's
football. You never know how things will go how they will end but
in the end they ended up as I wanted as I became a Chelsea player.
But not in the way I wanted.
"I have my conscience clear because I was honest with the people
at the club and all the information that comes out makes me sad
because it could have been handled in a different way."