Fernando Torres for £50m. The player wants to leave. The selling club wants to let go. The buying club is keen. The only thing that’s between a red and a blue shirt for Fernando Torres is that price tag. It is said that sometime during last season, when Torres was made some promises, they also agreed on a release clause of £50m.

Chelsea are supposedly in a period of financial austerity. In the last few seasons, clubs like Sunderland, Spurs etc had spent more than us. From nowhere, looks like we’ve coughed up . . well . . £50m. This is quite a surprise. We have been staying away from pricey stars for some seasons now. The last time we bought one was the £30m striker who scored against Liverpool on his debut.

This whole Torres saga is dividing the Blues fans. You have fans who are excited and you have fans who totally want to stay away from him, for this price. The ones that support quote what a great striker he is, that he’s a proven premier league star, that he can consistently score about 25 goals every season and that we have an aging pair of forwards. The ones that oppose this move make a reference to his injury proneness and that £50 is too much for what we’ve seen of him.

I don’t know if £50m is too much. There are two ways to look at a player’s value. One is based on the player and his potential and abilities. The other is based on how much the club can benefit by the player. Some new players have saved their clubs from relegation and when they do it, their valuation by the club will be immense. Similarly, we do have the team that can win the champions league. And Torres would just fit in just for that purpose.

Also, we don’t quite know what’s too expensive any more. Darren Bent went for £24m. And this deal was between Sunderland and Aston Villa. Atletico have rejected a £38m offer from Tottenham for Sergio Aguero. Now here, we’re talking about Fernando Torres, Chelsea and Liverpool. It can’t be less than £40m for sure. Also, it appears we could send some player(s) the other way as part of the deal. That’s rumoured to be Anelka and also that he’s not too keen to move. I don’t want Anelka to move. I’ve grown to love him despite all his shortcomings but then if Torres is here, Anelka will be relegated to the bench and I don’t know if he’s okay with that.

I personally would love to have Torres here for two reasons. One is, he is a fantastic striker. Two is, this will mean Carletto would change his formation from a 4-3-3 to 4-4-2. It is very clear that we don’t have the players for 4-3-3 and we’re not looking to buy players to fit in to this system either. See we’ve bought Ramires and Benayoun, we’re now looking to buy Torres. All this points towards a 4-4-2, which I’m very happy about.

A deal will have to be struck by 11pm UK time. The agreement will have to be reached much earlier so the paperwork that needs to happen before 11pm can go ahead. The deal, if any, should be completed to give enough time for Liverpool to speed-spend that money in the market in few hours’ time. It’s going to be a manic deadline day.

The best finish to this saga is Torres joining Chelsea. If you browse the net, you’d know that Liverpool fans have given up on him and all the hate messages have started flooding. This is what happened to Wayne Rooney and then he kissed and patched up. I don’t think it works that way in Liverpool. Torres is not Gerrard. If Torres were to issue a tearful apology and join the squad back, he’s not going to be embraced by the fans.

Wayne Rooney said that he wanted promises on who they’re going to buy and what their ambitions are. Fernando Torres reportedly says that he can develop further as a player at a different club. Do you see the difference? Wayne had a new contract in his mind and hence was asking questions of his club. Torres has moving to Chelsea in his mind hence his question doesn’t involve what Liverpool can offer.

I’ll be glued to the internet to follow this story. Let’s see what happens. Hoping he becomes a Blue by tonight. Here’s the inevitable poll. Let’s look at the reported deal. Would you want Chelsea FC to buy Fernando Torres at a package price of £50m. When I say package price, I mean that could be cash only or cash plus player(s). Don’t think about which players could leave. Just simply say if you’d want us to buy him for £50m.

You know my vote. In support of this move, I’ve even changed my twitter profile image. Check it out. Okay then, here you go. Make you move. Before that, watch this vid:

Fernando Torres for £50m

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