John Terry has revealed he thought Chelsea would dominate football home and abroad after signing Fernando Torres from Liverpool.
Torres made a controversial £50million switch from Anfield to Stamford Bridge in January 2011, but could never recapture the form that made him so electric for the Reds.
Jamie Carragher believes the Reds “kidded” Chelsea into the big-money sale with the striker having struggled for form the previous 12 months. And now Terry has revealed there was genuine excitement at Torres moving to Stamford Bridge.
“Yossi (Benayoun) was quite close to him, and Yossi was at Chelsea and was like, ‘Lads, Fernando is on his way’,” he said.
“And we were like, ‘no way, we’re absolutely going to dominate the Premier League and Europe for the next five or six years’. That was our thoughts from playing against him and seeing it.”
To his credit, Torres did win the Champions League, Europa League and FA Cup while with Chelsea.
Still, the period of domination failed to materialise with the Spaniard netting just 45 goals in 172 appearances.
Terry has also gone into detail about Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich’s pursuit of Torres, and how he was asking about the forward long before he left Liverpool.
“From a Chelsea point of view obviously he was the one I hated playing against,” said Terry, speaking to Sky Sports. “He always seemed to score at Anfield or at the Bridge.
"He was that kind of one player Roman always asked about, ‘is he tough to play against?’."
Torres made his Blues debut against Liverpool at Stamford Bridge and was marked out of the game as the Reds won 1-0.
Terry reckons the forward never truly recovered from the experience.
"We had three unbelievable strikers, and we tried to fit them in together," he said.
"We had enough firepower in Didier (Drogba) and (Nicolas) Anelka, whether Anelka was wide or just behind, to then bring Fernando on later in the game which would’ve been a good impact for him, I think.
"But it seemed after that game his confidence was shot to bits, to be honest."
