Fernando Torres: 5 Reasons Why Liverpool Should Buy Back El Nino

As most people will be aware, there have been recent rumours of Fernando Torres being put up for sale by Cheslea and inevitably his name has been linked with a return to Liverpool, the club that initially brought him to England from his boyhood club Atletico Madrid.

Earlier today, Eamonn Quinn posed the question of "Should Liverpool FC buy back Fernando Torres?"

His article was met with a fairly strong "Yes" vote, but as was expected, there were certain pockets of fans who staunchly stood in the "No" camp. For me, there is simply no question about it, the answer is a resounding "Yes."

In this article I will set out five reasons why a return to Liverpool makes sense for both Fernando Torres, and, more importantly, for Liverpool FC.

I hope you enjoy.

It's very clear that as great as Luis Suarez is, he's not going to be a 25-30 goal a season striker for Liverpool in the Premier League. What he will be is a 15 goal and 15 assist striker for Liverpool in the Premier League, if he's given a top-class strike partner and not expected to carry the burden alone.

When Luis Suarez was signed by Liverpool, he was signed to partner Fernando Torres. Damien Comolli had done his research, scoured Europe and come to the conclusion that the ideal partnership to carry Liverpool to glory was El Nino and El Pistolero.

Suarez himself has stated that the presence of Torres was one of the deciding factors in his decision to make the move to Liverpool.

Unfortunately, the partnership didn't come to fruition, and while some have mistakenly decided that Suarez and Carroll is a potentially great partnership, the truth is that's it's not. It's potentially one great player carrying a partner.

Suarez and Torres would be a mutually beneficial partnership, their skill sets are made to go together. The creativity, movement and intelligence of Suarez, paired with the pace and finishing ability of Torres is the stuff dreams are made of. Torres is also a very underrated passer of the ball and he works hard for the team as well.

If Liverpool don't want a repeat of the heartbreak of having their star striker leave because he has doubts about the clubs ambitions, then they must sign a top-class partner for Suarez, and Torres is a tailor-made choice.

Do I really need to go in to too much detail here? Gerrard and Torres terrorized defences from Manchester to Madrid during their time together at Liverpool. There was no finer pairing in the league and the duo were arguably Liverpool's best partnership since Dalglish and Rush.

Gerrard has struggled with form and injury for the better part of three season now and many people are, as with Torres, writing him off. What better way for both to silence their doubters than by doing so together. Steven Gerrard had one of the two greatest seasons of his career in 2008/09 playing in the second striker role behind Torres and it was clear that both players knew how to get the best out of each other.

With Luis Suarez added to the mix, Liverpool would have a couple of options positionally for Gerrard. They could employ a three-man midfield of Jordan Henderson, a defensive midfield and Charlie Adam, with Gerrard floating behind both Suarez and Torres, or they could move Steven Gerrard to the right side of midfield were he has spent a large part of his career and thrived. 

The other of Gerrard's two greatest seasons came playing on the right of midfield in the 2005/06 season. He also played there for a number of seasons under Gerard Houllier and had a lot of success there.

Playing Gerrard in the right sided role would, as long as Martin Kelly is playing right-back to handle the defensive side of things, relieve a lot of the pressure on Gerrard and a lot of the stress on his surgically-repaired body.

It's worth remembering that Gerrard himself once demanded a move to Chelsea before changing his mind and deciding to stay. He was forgiven for his transgressions, while Torres' followed through on the demand he also deserves forgiveness, especially if his return to the club resulted in renewed success.

We all know that Torres has struggled at Chelsea. This is, without question, the worst year of his glittering career. However, the recent struggles do not take away from his overall body of work and Fernando Torres remains a world-class player. 

Torres is, and has always been, a confidence player. He needs to have confidence in himself, he needs to feel his teammates' confidence in him, and most importantly, he needs to know that his manager has confidence in him.

Carlo Ancelotti clearly did not want Torres and forced him to play out of position on a number of occasions. When Torres failed to immediately repay his fee, Ancelotti lost patience and left him out of the team. That type of management does not work with people like El Nino.

When AVB was appointed in the summer, he seemed to have more confidence in Torres than his predecessor and slowly began to sculpt a team around Torres that would bring the best out of the Spanish hitman. 

Torres started the season slowly but began to find some form. A good performance against Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League was followed by a great performance against Manchester United at Old Trafford.

Forget the so called "miss of the century" which was nothing more than commentators and journalists being lazy and making a scapegoat out of Torres. Torres was simply brilliant on the day and tore United's defence apart time and time again. His goal was pure class and the miss as nowhere near as bad as it was made out to be.

He broke the United defensive line, left David DeGea looking even more gormless than usual and then simply missed what was actually quite a difficult chance. Regardless of the fact that there was no keeper, Torres was moving at full speed and was trying to shoot back across his body with his weaker left foot. Try it yourself and see how you do. It's not easy at all.

He followed that up with an excellent goal against Swansea and the Fernando Torres who had terrorized defences for Atletico Madrid and Liverpool appeared to finally be back. Unfortunately, he was red-carded in that game and from there he lost his own confidence and that of his manager.

Allan Jiang is one of the best writers on the Bleacher Report, he's also not a fan of Fernando Torres. So when Allan saw fit to write this article in September of this year, it was a true reflection on the progress Torres was making rather than just reactionary bluster. Unfortunately, as Allan predicted, the red card really affected him. Villas-Boas lost him for three games due to suspension and when he returned, Torres had lost the momentum.

Loss of momentum led to loss of confidence and rather than put an arm around his shoulder and keep the faith, Villas-Boas decided that dropping Torres was the better option. It is somewhat understandable given the pressure the Chelsea manager is under, as well as the resurgence of Didier Drogba, but it could and should have been handled better.

Torres proved in that short run of games prior to the red card that the magic is still there. In the right environment, with the right teammates and the right manager, he can return to his former greatness.

Liverpool is the ideal club for this. In Pepe Reina and Steven Gerrard, two of Liverpool's most influential personalities, he has big supporters, and in Kenny Dalglish, he has a manager who knows how to get the best out of great players struggling for form.

Reports of his demise have been greatly exaggerated, El Nino just needs to return home to show what he can do. Eighty-one goals and 17 assist in only 142 games tells the story.

Andy Carroll is not good enough to start for Liverpool Football Club right now and is, quite frankly, a long way from being good enough to start for Liverpool Football Club. Anyone who cares to dispute that simply hasn't watched him play in a red jersey or is suffering from a case of blind faith.

It is my own personal belief that he will never be good enough, but I'll give the lad the benefit of the doubt for now and estimate that it will be at least two years before he has reached a level of play that is even worthy of the red shirt.

As I stated in the previous slide, form is temporary. Unfortunately for Liverpool, Damien Comolli mistook one three-month spell of good form for long-term class and panicked into spending £35 million on a player who was worth no more than £15 million. It ranks right up there with the worst transfer deals in football history, and in terms of value for money, you won't find a worse case.

Andy Carroll has been dropped more times than he has started this season which, to me, indicates that regardless of Kenny Dalglish's comments to the English media, he simply doesn't have faith in Carroll right now. Carroll has been confined to a position on the bench and on a number of occasions hasn't even been granted a cameo role late in games.

Liverpool have a number of options with regards to Carroll. The first is that they could start him every week to the detriment of the team and hope that he improves or at least notches a couple of goals. Playing Carroll from the start can often be like playing with 10 men because if he's not scoring goals, he really offers nothing else to the team.

The second option is to continue to confine him to the bench and hope that he can improve by being an impact substitute and by working hard on the training ground. Unfortunately, Carroll's aptitude for hard work on the training is very low. Rather than spending his summer at Melwood working hard to ensure that he was in peak condition coming into the new season, he spent it partying on numerous beaches.

As a result of that, he entered this season in nothing close to peak fitness and people are still, in December, attempting to use the excuse that he isn't fully fit after his thigh injury. Need I remind people that he returned to action from that thigh injury in April?

Eric Abidal had a tumour removed from his liver and returned in just over two months and looked like he hadn't missed a day. An eight month secondary recovery following the initial four month recovery for a thigh injury is just not a credible excuse. To make matter worse, Pepe Reina recently revealed that Andy Carroll is the worst trainer at the club, so he's clearly not putting in the required effort.

The third option is to sell Carroll but let's be honest here, nobody else ever considered him to be worth £35 million so we can rule out recouping what we paid for him. And given his form since joining Liverpool, nobody will even come close to offering the £12-15 million which would represent his true market value. The best Liverpool could hope for would be an offer of £5-8 million which represents far too great a loss to even be considered. 

The fourth, final and best option is to loan Carroll out. If Liverpool were to bring in Torres, then with himself and Suarez, plus Kuyt and Bellamy, Liverpool would have enough options upfront.

If Carroll were to go on loan, rediscover the form that tricked Damien Comolli into spending such an exorbitant fee for him, and start banging in goals, then Liverpool would then have two good options. Bring back the rejuvenated Carroll and find a way to fit himself, Suarez and Torres in to the team, or use a rotation system. Or, they could also shop him around and hope to attract an offer worth considering.

Carroll's value and self-belief are whittling away with each passing game that he spends on the Liverpool bench, and a loan move would do wonders for both if it worked out. It would also keep his dream of playing for England at the European Championships alive, so really, it's the best option for all involved.

Fernando Torres left Liverpool under a cloud, that's something that nobody can deny. He also made some ill-advised comments about joining Chelsea because they were a team capable of challenging for honours which Liverpool were not.

Torres was correct about what he said in theory, the Chelsea team he joined were better than the Liverpool team he left, and they were, with the existing team and Roman Abramovich's billions certainly in a better position to compete for honours.

Nobody could have known that Kenny Dalglish would have had such a huge impact and invoked such a remarkable improvement in Liverpool's form and fortunes at the time Torres left. Retrospective vision is a great thing, but unfortunately when you're in the moment, it's not something that you have to assist you.

Torres' comments clearly hurt Liverpool fans and many of them hold them against him to this day. They could very well be seen as a calculated statement to put down Liverpool Football Club but there is also another way of looking at them. 

Torres' arrival at Chelsea was immediately embraced by large portions of the Blues' following, and in my opinion, what Torres was trying to do was win over those fans by stating that he was joining Chelsea for all the right reasons and that he was there to win major honours, rather than moving for the money as previous Chelsea signings had clearly done.

Pepe Reina is one of the most honest professional footballers you'll come across and he defended Torres' decision to leave Liverpool and was also of the belief that the post-transfer comments were clearly an effort to win over Chelsea fans, rather than disparage Liverpool.

Let us not forget that Wayne Rooney demanded to leave Manchester United stating that the club had no ambition and could not compete with the top teams, stayed for no other reason than a massive new contract and won them a league title. Do you think United fans hold his comments against him?

There's also the Gerrard to Chelsea saga that I mentioned earlier which should be considered before people slate Torres. Gerrard has far closer ties to Liverpool as a club and as a city than Torres ever will, yet he was never subjected to any sort of abuse despite his demand to leave.

Liverpool fans were understandably hurt by Torres' actions and words but some of the things that have been said about him amount to nothing more than a smear campaign. Certain small sections of the Liverpool fanbase have seen fit to rewrite history and diminish his impact and performances for the club whilst making up bold face lies about him. Do they forget that this is a man who, as captain of Atletico Madrid, once wore an armband bearing the words "You'll never walk alone"?

A returning Torres would have to win over portions of the Liverpool support and he would be acutely aware of that. The best way for him to do that is to do what he does best, score goals. A fired-up Fernando Torres is a sight to behold and Liverpool would benefit greatly from it.

He always has something to prove to the detractors who have claimed he'll never recapture his best form, but as I stated in slide No. 3, form is temporary. Torres can, without question, recapture his best form and return himself to the upper-echelons of football's elite. He just needs a chance.

So there you have it, my five reasons why Liverpool should be knocking on Chelsea's door to re-sign Torres come January. I'm sure there are some who will disagree, but the fact of the matter is this: regardless of your thoughts on Torres, he's a better centre-forward than anyone Liverpool currently have by a substantial distance and an in-form Fernando Torres would propel this Liverpool team into the Top 4.

If my five reasons aren't enough to convince you that a returning Torres is a good thing, maybe this will. In fact, I would ask you to take a minute and consider this man, this man and this man playing together. Now tell me you haven't had to wipe a little bit of drool from the corner of your mouth. I rest my case.

Feel free to check out my homepage where you can find a full archive of my work here on the Bleacher Report, and you can follow me on Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date with my latest ramblings.

I'd like to thank you for taking the time to read this article, feel free to leave your thoughts and comments below. And if you've got five minutes more to spare, you might like to read - http://bleacherreport.com/articles/980285-luis-suarez-his-top-10-moments-for-liverpool-so-far