Liverpool FC Forum

[account deleted by request]

I thought Torres was outstanding yesterday. Pace, power and skill...... he seems to have it all. On the point about him looking tired , I think it was Ace Ventura that got it spot on when he said that Torres was just not match fit at the start of the season. Now he has a few games under his belt he looks sharper and more like his old self.

[Johnny Boy]

I think his attitude has changed too. In his first season apart from his goals one of his best attributes was getting up and on with the game whenever he was fouled.
This season he seems to have got himself involved with petty squabbles with officials and opposing players, his body language just didn't look right, but yesterday looked sharp , even little things like the way he walked around the pitch - there was a purpose and determination about it.

[tubby]

He is kicking of more now becasue he has rattled pretty much every team he has ever played against. Teams give him a lot more attention now which is a testiment to his calibre but obviously not goodfor us. I think he has had around 4 or 5 black eyes already this season so he has a reason to be off.

[stmichael]

The guy is football sex

That's now 34 goals in 34 league games at anfield 

[Redman in wales]

[Ciggy]

Rafael Benitez: Fernando Torres not for sale at any price - Liverpool FC latest
Sep 28 2009 by Ian Doyle, Liverpool Daily Post

RAFAEL BENITEZ has declared Fernando Torres as priceless after the striker destroyed Hull City.

Torres netted an outstanding hat-trick as Liverpool romped to a 6-1 home victory over the struggling Tigers on Saturday.

It was the fourth treble of his Anfield career and moved him to the top of this season’s Premier League goal-scoring charts with eight goals in seven games.

And Benitez has warned any potential suitors they would be wasting their time in trying to prise the 24-year-old away from Anfield.

“How much is he worth?” said the Liverpool manager.

“Well at least £70million, you would say. I'm not saying he's the best in the world because he is young and can get better, but of course he is one of the best, and he can still improve if he wants to.

“This year we had some agents acting for other English clubs who were coming to us asking about the price of Torres, with big, big figures, but we said that he's not for sale. I would say at this moment in time he is not for sale at any price.”

Liverpool paid a club record fee in excess of £20million to sign Torres from Atletico Madrid two years ago, and Benitez is convinced it has proven money well spent.

“When we bought Torres, at that time it was big, big money for us,” said the Liverpool manager. “You look at the players we have bought and that is a big difference, so it shows what we thought of him.

“At the time we said we thought it was cheap even at that price, and you can see that now. Hopefully at the end of his contract we will still be saying that. We were really pleased to pay that money, put it that way. We knew the mentality of the player, we knew the age, and we had very few doubts about his ability.

“At the time we drew up a list of 10 strikers, and went through their strengths and weaknesses, of each, and Torres was top of that list, because he had more strengths and fewer weaknesses.”

Torres is now rediscovering his best form after a slow start to the campaign which attracted criticism from even his own manager, who urged the striker to take out his frustrations on the opposition rather than the referee.

And Benitez said: “We knew at the start of the season he would struggle for condition. All the Spanish players arrived 20 days later than the rest of the squad because of the very important Confederations Cup, and we had matches straight away, which meant they couldn't train.

“We knew it would take time for them to get fitter, and it would take maybe a month or two to see the best of Fernando. But he has been working really hard, and in the last few games you could see that hard work paying off.

“He can do better though. He wants to score more goals away from home.”

[url=http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-fc/liverpool-fc-news/2009/09/28/rafael-benitez-fernando-torres-not-for-sale-at-any-price-liverpool-fc-latest-92534-2479461
9/2/]http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpo....2[/url]

[stmichael]

Rafa has clearly had a word with him and he's been in stunning form ever since. He was spending too much time bitching and moaning at refs and getting into petty squabbles on the pitch.

[NANNY RED]

Good Interview

Fernando Torres - The People’s Man

In an exclusive one-to-one with Sport, Fernando Torres talks candidly about Liverpool’s chances of winning the Premier League, what it’s like to work with Rafa Benitez and of his special relationship with the Anfield faithful

At 10am on the morning of Tuesday July 3 2007, a serious-looking Fernando Torres addressed a hastily arranged press conference at the Vicente Calderón, home of his first and to then only club, Atlético Madrid. His news was that, 12 years after joining Atlético as an 11-year-old full of goals and promise, he was leaving for pastures new; for England, in fact, to join Rafael Benitez’s Spanish revolution at Liverpool.

The conference was hastily arranged because Liverpool had already set up a press conference of their own – for 3pm that very same afternoon – to announce their new signing. But Torres, then 23, wanted to do things the right way. “First, I want to say goodbye to the Atlético fans,” he told Benitez. “I’ve been there my whole life, they’ve always treated me wonderfully and they deserve a proper farewell. I have to show them my gratitude before I go.”

Torres recalls these pivotal moments in his career in his new book, Torres: El Niño: My Story – a work he dedicates “to the best fans in the world”. Careful not to differentiate between the old of Atlético and the new of Liverpool, the Spaniard’s appreciation of the people who have paid to watch him play since his breakthrough into the Atlético team at the age of 17 is a theme that recurs throughout the book’s 25 chapters.

But, in Torres’ case, the affection is mutual. Sport is on its way to Anfield to interview the 25-year-old, in the back of a taxi driven by a man quick to announce himself a Red.

“The thing about Torres is that he genuinely has time for the fans,” he says. “You see the players drive off after games, and some just wind their windows up and go straight out. But Torres always stops to sign autographs and that – sometimes he’s there for absolutely ages. Kids especially will always remember that.”

Arriving at the ground, Sport sees proof of the fans’ devotion in the form of a seemingly endless queue of people waiting for Torres to appear at a book signing in the club shop later that afternoon. First, though, he has a date with us…

Liverpool didn’t make the greatest start to the season, Fernando – what’s the mood like in the dressing room now?

“Well, after two defeats at the beginning, to Tottenham and then Aston Villa at home, it was a difficult moment for us. But we are improving now, we are playing better, especially in the games against teams in the middle of the table and at the bottom, who were our weakness in the past. We must be happy for that, but we know we still have to improve a lot.”

Before your two goals against West Ham, people had been saying you looked like you were struggling for form – have you been happy with how you’ve been playing?

“Yeah. It was a long season for me last year, with a lot of injuries and then after it the Confederations Cup, but I’m fine. I’m playing a lot of games and sometimes feel a little bit tired, but I’m okay. I have to improve a little bit the physical side of my game, but I feel fit.”

In some games this season Steven Gerrard has played deeper, with Dirk Kuyt in the hole just off you. Do you – and the team – lose something when Gerrard drops back?

“Well, it depends on the game. Everyone knows that when Stevie plays close to the box it is really good for us because he is really dangerous there – he can score goals in almost every game. Then, in games like those against Stoke or Burnley, he played more as a midfielder. But that is really nice for us as well because he can move the ball, move with the ball, and it allows us to play with two strikers and be more offensive. We are winning comfortably these kind of games now, so I think it’s a good option for the team – we can play in different ways and keep winning.”

You play as a lone striker for Liverpool, whereas for Spain you are mostly one of a pair with David Villa. Which do you prefer?

“It doesn’t matter. When I play just me, I play on the shoulders of the defenders, the centre backs, and when we play with two it’s more or less the same because it’s the other one who goes deep to receive the ball. I always try to play between the lines and stay in between the centre backs, so one or two is more or less the same. It doesn’t really matter to me – the main thing is that the team wins.”

As one of Liverpool’s Spanish legion, were you sad to see Xabi Alonso and Alvaro Arbeloa leave for Real Madrid in the summer?

“It was difficult for us because they are friends and were important players for the team, but we have to think in the present and the future, and they are not here any more. Hopefully the best for them is at Real Madrid, but we now have to think of the players we have. I think Lucas is making a step forward and is becoming an important player for us, and Glen Johnson has made a fantastic start to the season. He has scored two goals already, which for a right back is amazing – we hope there is a lot more to come, but if he doesn’t score again this season, it’s already enough! He’s a very important player for us, though, one of the most important in the squad – he can defend too, he is a very complete player. We have the squad that we have, so we have to do what we can with that.”

Two weeks ago, Pepe Reina said it was ‘unrealistic’ to think of Liverpool as title contenders this season. Do you agree?

“We know it will be difficult because a lot of teams want to win the Premier League, but I think we have to believe in ourselves. We have the same chance as Manchester United or Chelsea or [Manchester] City or Arsenal – we just have to keep believing we can win, and then let’s see what happens at the end of the season.”

Are there any specific areas in which you think the team must improve?

“I think just as a team. The strength of Liverpool is that, when we play as a team, we can beat anyone. We have to improve as a team and try to be stronger at home against the mid- and lower-table teams. I think we can get more points in these kind of games, and then if we can play face to face against Man Utd and Chelsea, we will be on the top. But it’s too early to think about the end of the season – right now we think about the next game, and then we see what happens later.”

You’ve already proved yourself a loyal player during your time at Atlético, but you’re now 25 – if Liverpool don’t start winning trophies soon, how long will it be before you start to think about having to leave?

“I think we have to be patient, no? We have a fantastic squad, still young – we have Dan Agger, Martin Skrtel, Lucas and Stevie, all of whom will still play a long time. We have to be patient, and then when we win the next trophy we have to be strong enough to go on and win more. This is how it is; I remember [Carles] Puyol telling me how he was 24, 25 and had played for Barcelona for seven seasons without winning any trophies – and now look at him, he has everything. So you have to be patient; if you play for a massive team like Liverpool, you will win trophies.”

You talk in your book about what it means to you to be an ‘atletico’ – of ‘fighting against the establishment, doing it the hard way, the people against the power’. Do you see similar characteristics at Liverpool?

“Yeah, I think both at the club and with the people on the street. Liverpool is a working-class city, the people work hard all the week and then try to be happy with the football at the weekend, so it’s very similar to Madrid. I was born in a working-class town in the suburbs of Madrid, and Atlético was the poor team in the city – the small one next to a massive club like Real Madrid. It’s difficult to live like this, but I think it makes you stronger; you have to fight not just against a team, but against everything else as well.”

Fighting talk is appropriate, considering how many black eyes you’ve had so far this season. Do you feel like you’re still a target for opposition defenders?

[Laughs] “No, because to be honest both times it was me heading into the defenders, so it’s my fault. I know I have to improve the physical side of my game, but that’s football – sometimes things happen, but it’s not really important.”

Is it true that, when you first moved to Liverpool, one of the first things Rafa Benitez said was that you were too thin for the Premier League?

[Smiles] “Yeah, he said hello and then the next thing was: ‘Tomorrow, when you go to Melwood, you go to the gym.’ So I went.”

Benitez gets his fair share of bad press – what’s he really like to work with?

“Rafa is a really professional manager; he’s always thinking about how to improve the squad as a whole and every single player as an individual. He tries to be aware of every small detail and is a really honest person. He always tries to make a stronger squad, but we know we are not the richest club in the world; we know we need to make our squad stronger if we want to fight Man Utd or Chelsea, so we are doing that. We are on the way, and I hope we get money in the future to sign more players; but, this season, we are what we are – and we need to try to do things as well as we can.”

Before joining Man City, Carlos Tevez said he’d never join Liverpool out of respect for the United fans – would you say the same about a potential move to Old Trafford?

“Yeah, I think so. I can understand the feelings between Man Utd and Liverpool. I’m a foreign player, so maybe I don’t have to think like that, but I know how the Liverpool fans feel and I remember the welcome I had when I arrived – it was just amazing, so I think Liverpool is my English club. I hope to play a lot of years or maybe even finish my career here. I don’t know, but Liverpool is my English team and I don’t think about playing for another one.”

Speaking as someone who came through as a local youngster at Atlético, how important do you think Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher are to Liverpool?

“Every big club has to have players coming through from the academy, like Stevie or Carra – they are the heart of Liverpool, the character, the spirit of the team. We all have to learn from them because they can show you the way; they were at Liverpool as kids and they are still here today, the captains of the team. The rest of us have to respect them and learn from them.”

Can you understand a word Carragher says?

[Smiles] “Yeah, of course. I’ll be honest – at the beginning when I arrived, it was really difficult, especially when he was talking with another Scouser… but I can understand now, sure.”

Finally, is it true that, when you first came over, the two guys Liverpool employed to teach you English made you respond to adverts in the local paper?

“Yeah, they had me asking for everything: dogs, cars, animals in the stores, iguanas and everything. It was, well, a nice experience…”

TONY HODOSN

[account deleted by request]

Everything I read about him makes me like him even more. Top player and top bloke I just hope he stays till the end of his career.

[JamCar05]

Everything I read about him makes me like him even more. Top player and top bloke I just hope he stays till the end of his career.

Couldn't agree more. What a humble person off the field... and what a player on it

[Dundalk]

Barclays Player of the Month   

[account deleted by request]

Torres: 'Rafa either wants to improve me or kill me'

As Fernando Torres tells his life story in a new book, the lauded striker speaks to Ian Herbert about his life in Madrid and on Merseyside – and reveals the intensity of his relationship with Benitez


Saturday, 3 October 2009

'I am still waiting for a trophy at club level and I want one, but I am still young' - Fernando Torres on his lack of silverware at Liverpool

Just before it all starts tomorrow, Fernando Torres will, as he always does, drop down on to his haunches and crouch for a minute or more.


It will be just him and the turf and a small box of silence at Stamford Bridge, hermetically sealed from all the sound and the fury outside it. "I don't know why I started but I always do it before the games," Torres says of this habit. "I like to see the other players with the keeper and I like to see the other end and the people in the stand behind the goal. I try to see the goal and try to think where the ball is going."

Seeing the goal is a task which, taken in its literal sense, Torres hardly need prepare for. The eight goals he has placed into a net this season – a tally it took him until 1 February, and the arrival at Anfield of Luiz Felipe Scolari's feckless Chelsea side, to reach in the last campaign – are part of a new-found opulence in Rafael Benitez's Liverpool, whose 22 league goals in the season's first seven weeks represent their most prolific return since 1895. But there are other, more substantial goals to go in search of. Liverpool have not collected a piece of silverware of any description for three long years and the prospect of extending that to a fourth would, Torres sees all too clearly, be a catastrophe for the Red quarters of Merseyside and beyond.

"To go another season and have four years without a trophy would be a massive blow for Liverpool," he says, in his excellent English which is still more Spanish than Scouse. "Three years without a trophy is too much for Liverpool, and especially the Premier League. We have to improve. We really have to win [one]."

He is not the only Liverpool player to betray a yearning for silverware. The same feelings left Pepe Reina, Torres' great ally at Anfield, reflecting last month that the title was not a "realistic objective". But Torres has been here before, on the outside looking in with more than a little envy at other people's trophy cabinets. After an upbringing in Fuenlabrada, a small city on the outskirts of Madrid famous across Spain for putting skirts on the green stick-man illuminated at pedestrian crossings in the interests of gender equality, Torres found himself on the receiving end of the capital city's mighty football inequality, attempting to help Atletico Madrid match their neighbours, Real. Torres, one part prodigy, one part folk hero at Estadio Vincente Calderon, was worn down by the side's overreliance on him in the end. "Any team has to be built on collective responsibility but at Atletico I had too much and I had to take on the responsibility of others, too," Torres revealed last season.

Though it seems like a case of history repeating itself – the dependence on Torres and Steven Gerrard is as profound as it ever was at Anfield – then Torres has at least found solace from a compatriot who has experienced the same. "I am still waiting for a trophy at club level, and I want one, but I am still young; I am just 25," Torres says. "I was talking with Carles Puyol at Barcelona some years ago and he said he was 23-24 at Barcelona and hadn't won a single trophy, but now he has plenty of them." Ten, to be precise. But while Puyol's wait for silverware lasted six years, Torres is now into his ninth club campaign, with the taste of success which last year's European Championship brought with Spain only accentuating the sense of what has been missing with his clubs.

For all that, though, there is something in the Torres character which makes these proletarian struggles quite natural ones. He might have the accoutrements of the superstar – including the £130,000-a-week salary which this summer's new five-year contract brought and the personal website which confidently places No 9 between his first and last names – but the prevailing sense which El Niño: My Story, his new autobiography, leaves is how Torres and a working-class city like Liverpool were made for each other. He chose Liverpool, he says, "because of the mentality of the club. It's a working club. Always, Liverpool never had the same money as other teams and always is winning trophies like the bigger ones."

Everton fans do not seem to take the same delight in ruining a Torres night out that Real's did, either. "I couldn't do almost anything in Madrid when I was there," he recalls. "Madrid is a big city and I wasn't playing for the strongest team, so 80 per cent of the people there are Real fans. It was hard just to walk or go to a restaurant or the cinema because people do not have the same respect there that they do here for players. If I went somewhere with friends [in Madrid] it was really difficult. Here in Liverpool, I can do almost everything I want to do. I can walk in the park, or to the Albert Dock. The people recognise you but they have a lot of respect for a player. The quality of life is the main thing for me."

It is as well, perhaps, that his preferred days out are not to Manchester – where his career would have taken him had Sir Alex Ferguson has his way – but to the more Liverpool-friendly locations of Chester and Formby. (A 99 Flake with raspberry sauce, the book tell us, is his preference at the seaside.) Perhaps it is also the working-class outlook which makes some of Benitez's interminable ways more tolerable to him than they were to the Liverpool squad the manager inherited in 2004. Torres has more than demonstrated his technical abilities – the quick foot-to-foot transfer and his habit of feigning lack of interest in a ball before pinching it from a defender, which helped him score the 33 goals which, in 2007-08, made him the highest foreign goalscorer in a debut season in English football history. But still the manager obsesses about improvements.

One of the excellent anecdotes in El Niño concerns a day when, after Torres had scored twice in Liverpool's magnificent 2-0 win over Chelsea in February, he was tying up his boots ready to head out to the Melwood training pitch. The weekend papers had been full of stories about Torres being set to become a father and he takes up the story: "'Congratulations, Fernando,' Rafa says. 'Thanks, boss,' I reply. I assumed he was congratulating me on the pregnancy and I paused, expecting the obvious next question. I was wrong. 'Just as we'd anticipated, attacking the near post really paid off yesterday,' he said. 'You got ahead of the defender into that space we talked about, which gave you an advantage and allowed you to beat Cech with a header.'"

Typical Benitez – and a story Glen Johnson should have read before he arrived at Anfield in July. Johnson assumed that Benitez would appreciate his talents, having paid £17m for him – then spent three weeks listening to him detailing his faults. "Rafa spends time with everyone whether they are doing well or badly," Torres says in the manager's defence. "He is always pushing the players because it is the best way to improve, and you can say to yourself he wants to improve me or he wants to kill me, but I can tell you, he does want the best for every single player."

The spending limitations are all too apparent at Liverpool, whose American owners are seeking equity partners to help offset their debt, leading Reina to reflect that "teams like Manchester United have lots of players who can tip the balance; we haven't got the individuals". But Torres has a more positive philosophy. "It is easier when you have money to spend on top players, because you have more quality in the squad and more chances," he says. "But it's not always like that. Liverpool won the Champions League four years ago with just a strong squad, so we have different strengths. We have to do it another way." He believes Liverpool can experience the same effect from a first trophy that United enjoyed after winning the Premier League in 1993. "We know that when the first trophy comes we can win plenty of trophies. The next one will come soon," he says.

Having Torres and Gerrard fit to play together more often than the 17 times in the league they were in tandem last season is critical. So far they have already played together in every league game. And victory over Chelsea tomorrow will be a psychological asset. "It will give us plenty of confidence going into the international break. We will be able to rest a little bit and come back feeling like a strong team. If you can beat Chelsea away then you know you can beat any team in England and in Europe. We need to win these kind of games to be stronger." Such are the thoughts that will consume the mind of the crouching tiger who, if you look closely, you will see down there – just about pitch level – as the Stamford Bridge clock ticks up to 4pm tomorrow.
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[tubby]

There was a great article in the Mail today on Torres. It was about his time in Spain and the events which led to him coming here. Not sure if some of it is from his book but it was a great read.

[maguskwt]

There was a great article in the Mail today on Torres. It was about his time in Spain and the events which led to him coming here. Not sure if some of it is from his book but it was a great read.

it's from his book... once a book comes out on a player all these journalists make use of the extracts to write articles...

[maguskwt]

anyone wanna bet against Torres becoming the fastest Liverpool player to reach 50 goals mile stone? 

who is holding the record now btw? Rush?