There’s no good way of leaving Liverpool for Chelsea. There’s no reason you can give that would convince the Anfield faithful that switching their adulation for Stamford Bridge is a wise move.
But what you don’t have to do is completely alienate those supporters by engineering a move at the most inopportune time and coming out with daft statements to back it up.
Fernando Torres is almost 27 and wants to win trophies and play in the Champions League. Fair enough.
But he knew that at the start of the season. If he’d made it absolutely clear then that he wanted to go instead of waiting for Chelsea to come in at the end of January maybe, just maybe, he would have resurrected a bit of respect and understanding concerning his motives.
I’m not saying that anyone should expect undying loyalty from a footballer these days, we know that they have to put their own career first and that makes Torres no better or worse than anyone else.
However, there are ways of going about it.
Last summer, Liverpool was in limbo. Rafa Benitez was on his way, the club was desperately trying to find a new buyer to rid itself of the George Gillett/Tom Hicks debacle and the team had failed to qualify for the Champions League for the first time in years.
The fans were disillusioned and couldn’t have blamed the players for feeling likewise.
And if Torres, fresh from a World Cup win with Spain, had come back, surveyed the mess and said, “sorry but I’m off” I don’t think too many would have blamed him.
There certainly wouldn’t have been the same level of antagonism there will be towards him now.
He has scored a few this season, but a finisher of his class can score goals with his eyes shut.
The reality is, he never really gave his all for Roy Hodgson and has sloped around looking uninterested for most of the campaign. If that was his attitude, he should have gone before a ball was kicked.
You can’t have a disillusioned figure running down the dressing room. If someone would rather play for Chelsea than Liverpool you have to let them do that.
But to declare undying love for a club one minute then declare that you’ve “joined a big club now” while sat in front of a giant Chelsea badge the next, is just silly.
For Liverpool, however, it makes it easy to wash their hands of him and move on.
What I like about the deals to bring in Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll is the investment in young, hungry potential.
If this is the direction the new owners want to go in then it can pay off both on and off the field.
Financially, while Carroll especially comes at a very high price, the sales of Ryan Babel and Torres will offset the outlay, and bringing in young players always gives you the time to cash in on them if they don’t prove a success. Babel is a good case in point, he can still fulfil his potential elsewhere.
And on the field, Liverpool will go from relying on one injury-prone – and as we now know uncommitted – striker to having two international forwards.
Kenny Dalglish knows how to get the best out of forwards and he also knows how to overcome the loss of a massively influential player.
That was the status Graeme Souness had at Anfield when he left in 1984 for Italy. He seemed irreplaceable at the time and, similarly in the case of Torres, there wasn’t really anyone who could come in directly and give what he gives to a team.
But it’s about sometimes getting in two players to do that similar job and adapting the side accordingly. You move on and, as I think we’ll see Liverpool do now, you move up.
What Kenny knows more than anything, however, is that nobody is bigger than the club. He is the man who has come closest to having that status, but he still couldn’t manage it.
So he’ll have no trouble making sure Torres is swiftly consigned to the history books.
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