31 January 2011 - All Those Pounds Bring A Lot Of Pressure

On 31 January 2011, the last day of the British transfer window saw a flurry of activity that resulted in two records being broken for the sales of strikers Fernando Torres and Andy Carroll.

The transfer domino was started by Chelsea, who bought Spanish striker Fernando Torres (center) from Liverpool. Torres, who joined Liverpool in 2007, had scored 65 goals in 102 league appearances for the Merseysiders. His performance drew the attention of defending league champions Chelsea, who made a bid of £35M which Liverpool rejected, even though Torres had submitted a transfer request. But faced with an impending release clause due to be triggered in the summer, they eventally accepted Chelsea's second bid, reported to be approximately £40M--a record amount paid by a British club.

In order to fill the void left by the departure of Torres, Liverpool acted quickly to sign strikers Andy Carroll (right) from Newcastle for £35M and Luis Suárez (left) from Ajax for £22.7M, to reach a grand total of £94.7 spent on the three players. Carroll's fee was the highest ever paid for a British player.

But although Torres and Carroll set the records, Suárez turned out to be the best purchase of the trio, providing four goals and five assists for the remainder of that season. To date, he has twelve goals and eleven assists for Liverpool in 35 appearances across all competitions. Both Torres and Carroll have struggled at their new clubs, scoring a total of eleven goals between them (six from Carroll and five from Torres).