Jamie Carragher has revealed that Liverpool's players "couldn't believe" Chelsea bought Fernando Torres for £50million in 2011, a sale that resulted in the signing of Luis Suarez.
Torres became one of the most feared strikers in world football upon arriving in Anfield, scoring 56 goals in his first 79 Premier League games.
However, the Spaniard's form had seen a drastic drop by the time of his eventual big-money move to Stamford Bridge.
Torres endured a torrid spell with Chelsea, scoring just 20 goals in 110 matches for the club.
"I couldn't believe it. I knew we had kidded Chelsea. Those last 12 months, he was a shadow of his former self," Carragher told Sky Sports.
"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, [Andriy] 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.
"£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."
Suarez - after arriving in 2011 as a direct replacement for Torres - scored 82 goals in 133 games for Liverpool and arguably went down as one of the club's greatest forwards of all-time.
The Uruguayan left for Barcelona in 2014 in a £75m deal.
