The Spaniard swapped Anfield for Stamford Bridge in January 2011, in a move which is now acknowledged as one of the worst buys in Premier League history. Having notched 65 goals in just 102 league games in his time on Merseyside, Torres would go on to score just 20 in 110 league games for Chelsea.
Despite Torres’ incredible strike rate at Liverpool, Carragher believes Liverpool ‘kidded’ Chelsea and says the Spaniard was past his best when he made his big-money move to London.
"I couldn't believe it,” Carragher told Sky Sports. “I knew we had kidded Chelsea. Those last 12 months, he was a shadow of his former self.
"For 18 months at Liverpool, he was the best striker in the world, and I think he had such a good record against Chelsea that obviously stuck in the owner's mind. Chelsea at that stage, I think the owner was still buying players who he wanted, Shevchenko was another case.
"What happened that was fortunate for Liverpool, that season we played Chelsea, and we weren't having a great season and Torres was having a really poor time, but he scored two against Chelsea. I think the decision was made then - as soon as January comes, we are going for Fernando Torres."
Carragher went on to claim he wasn’t the only Liverpool player who was shocked by the news.
The former Reds defender believes the full squad were in disbelief at the money the club received for Torres, and say he was far from surprised when the move didn’t work out.
In the latest Off Script @carra23 tells John Terry how he thought Liverpool had kidded Chelsea by getting £50m for Fernando Torres, whilst Terry thought the signing would propel Chelsea to dominance for years.
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) April 23, 2020
Watch the full video here 👇
"£50m was major money at that stage and we were all in a state of shock, we could not believe we had got £50m. We ended up doing something similar ourselves in buying Andy Carroll for £35m, but we did get Luis Suarez out of it.
"I was not surprised at all that it didn't go well."
Source : 90min