Simon Hughes' new book, Ring of Fire, contains Torres' side of the story when he left for Chelsea.
Quote:
“Torres’s sense of frustration was sharpened when Liverpool sold Javier Mascherano to Barcelona despite being assured only a month before that in order for a takeover to be completed, the club would need to keep its best players. To establish that, he had met with Christian Purslow on holiday in the aftermath of the World Cup held in South Africa.
When New England Sports Ventures (later to become Fenway Sports Group) acquired Liverpool in October in a purchase that Hicks would infamously label “an epic swindle,” it was soon announced that Liverpool’s structure would change, with a sporting director primarily dealing with the recruitment and sale of players. Damien Comolli was hired to the role, having achieved varied success at Tottenham Hotspur.
Torres recalls a meeting in the November: “Comolli told me that the new owners [FSG) had an idea of how to spend their investment. They wanted to bring in young players, to build something new. I was thinking to myself: this takes time to work. It takes two, three, four, maybe even 10 years. I didn’t have that time. I was 27 years old. I did not have time to wait. I wanted to win. Here we are five years later and they are still trying to build — around the same position in the league as when I left.”
Torres says he left neither meeting with Purslow nor Comolli believing he was wanted at Liverpool for reasons “only related to football”.
It was the fall-out from the consultation with Kenny Dalglish that proved to be defining for Torres, however. Dalglish had initially been appointed on a temporary basis following the sacking of Roy Hodgson.
Though Torres admits of his unhappiness and that the possibility of leaving was discussed during the constructive discussion that did not include his agent or any other representatives speaking on his behalf, this conversation only happened after Liverpool had started negotiating privately with Chelsea.”
This part in particular explains it:
Quote:
“Torres’s future was delicately balanced when it was then reported that he had “verbally requested” to leave Liverpool. He determined this information had come from a deliberate leak and that his position as a Liverpool player was untenable because of broken trust.
“It changed the view of everybody, including myself,” he said. “It was presented as if I was a traitor. It was not like this in the discussion(s). Liverpool could not admit they were doing something wrong with the whole team. They had to find a guilty one.””
http://www.theanfieldwrap.com/2016/0...-anfield-exit/
So he was pretty much forced out, the club wanted him to go and he was made to feel rather unwanted. I also get the feeling he didn't want to be a part of FSG's long-term project because he was at an age where he felt he wanted to win things now, and was capable of doing so.
