#4 Fernando Torres – £50 million
The man who was responsible for the previous slide, Fernando Torres’ move to Chelsea affected everyone in the worst possible way. Every party involved in the domino effect had to face repercussions.
The London club paid £50 million – and high-end wages – for a striker who had seemingly forgotten how to score, the player itself was so low on confidence that he developed somewhat of penalty-box fright. Liverpool themselves were left with no time and had to make a quick and overpriced move for an unproven striker and Andy Carroll had to face the humiliation of the football fraternity for being one of the worst big-money deals of all time.
Fernando Torres’ time at Chelsea was so bad that it is one of the things he would like to forget, except for the Champions League triumph. His spell at Chelsea could be described in a nutshell by watching this video of him missing an open goal against Manchester United.
Chelsea, however, persisted him with three-and-a-half years before accepting that he won’t be the striker they had hoped for. The Spaniard was then shipped off to Milan on a loan deal, who terminated it after just six months.
In the end, Atletico Madrid came to the rescue and grabbed him on a two-year loan deal before making the move permanent on a free transfer.