In 2004 Michael Owen left Liverpool and I was absolutely gutted. I was a young’un at the time, and Owen was a player who was synonymous with Liverpool Football Club and its success. Who can forget his brace against Arsenal in that cracking FA Cup Final on a sunny day in May in 2001? I couldn’t, and like a lot of Liverpool fans I was devastated when he left for Real Madrid for a measly £8 million after running down his contract.

Now, 7 years later, Michael Owen plays for Manchester United; the boy who started life at Liverpool Football Club, who could have been a Liverpool legend sitting proudly alongside the likes of Rush, Fowler and Dalglish… is now regarded as a cunt.

Just a few days ago Fernando Torres left Liverpool Football Club in a transfer worth £50 million. His destination? Chelsea Football Club; the plastic flag waving play-thing of a dodgy Russian man with a different yacht for every day of the week. It was a shock and it hurt… it hurt… for about 5 minutes. Now, I look back with a smile on my face; we’ve rid ourselves of a player who sulked, was often injured, didn’t play for the team, is arguably past his best (see: Owen and injuries) and didn’t actually want to play for our club. £50,000,000 seems like a pretty good deal.

However, the shock and hurt emanated from the fact that Fernando Torres wanted to leave Liverpool. But now I think about it, his transfer request simply served as a reminder that this is modern day football; romance in football, at least with the players, has long since perished. Instead, we watch as players pick and choose what clubs they play for and how much they are payed down to the last detail. Contracts stall and are decided based on ‘image rights’, rather than the role that the footballer will have at the club. Supporters are mugs, naively believing that a player feels the same passion that they do for badge upon their chest, that they play for the crest, that the player ‘just gets us’.

It has been most satisfying watching the career of Michael Owen slowly diminish over the years. Injuries and decisions based on a financial motive have seen him slowly rot away into a player no one really wants. Not many players have left Liverpool and have gone on to bigger and better things; we simply aren’t a stepping stone to a top side, we are a side that players aspire to play for and we always will be.

Whilst Fernando Torres is unplayable on his day I have a feeling that we have perhaps, like we did with Owen, seen the best of his days at Liverpool. In Andy Carroll and Luis Suarez, we have players who are young, talented and hungry… and most of all, want to play for Liverpool Football Club. So whilst everyone is disappointed Torres has left the club, it is important to remember that we have replaced one quality player who didn’t want to play for us with two quality players who DO.

Kevin Keegan left in 1977. It was seen as a disaster. He was replaced by none other than Kenny Dalglish. Food for thought.