Jamie Carragher has said he knew Liverpool had 'kidded' Chelsea when they sold Fernando Torres for £50m in January 2011.
In four years at Anfield, Torres took the Premier League by storm and scored 65 goals in 102 league matches, including 24 in his first season in English football.
However, his form declined significantly towards the end of his spell at the club, scoring just nine goals in 23 matches - having hit double that tally in 24 matches the previous campaign.
Despite this significant decline in form, Chelsea moved to sign the Spain international in January 2011 and paid £50million to bring him to Stamford Bridge.
Torres' form did not improve, as he hit just one goal before the end of the season and, when he left the club in 2015, had managed just 20 goals in 110 matches for the club.
The deal is now widely regarded to be one of the worst pieces of business in Premier League history and Carragher has stated he knew his old side had got the better end of the deal through Abramovich's determination to sign the striker.
"I couldn't believe it. I knew we had kidded Chelsea. Those last 12 months, he was a shadow of his former self," he 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, 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.
"£50million was major money at that stage and we were all in a state of shock, we could not believe we had got £50million. 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."
