A Sign of Things to Come….?

I read with great interest today that Liverpool’s new manager Roy Hodgson would not be drawn into speculation about the future of star striker Fernando Torres when asked by journalists after the friendly with Kaiserslautern this afternoon (which a mainly reserve team “gallantly” lost by one goal to nil). What is puzzling about this (to me, at least) is the fact that since he has taken over the mantle from Rafa Benitez, he has hasn’t (apart from his first couple of days in the job) been remotely vague when asked questions about players staying, players leaving or potential transfer targets (apart, of course, from denying all knowledge of the Joe Cole link the day before the player signed for the club – that was “clever” vagueness in my book) and has always been forthright, articulate and accommodating with everything thrown at him.

But when he came out today with the following statement when asked by journalists whether he had any update on the Torres saga:

“”No, but Christian might be able to if you got hold of him. I haven’t spoken to him for the last two days he’s been travelling back from Spain where he’s been on holiday.

“His holiday has also been taken up a lot of time by discussions with Fernando and his people, so I’m afraid the only person who can give you the type of details you require is Christian.

“It would be wrong of me to say too much.”

…the last sentence will have had the effect of filling Reds supporters with a sense of foreboding and, dare I say, dread. It is pretty obvious from this that Hodgson knows something that we, thus far, do not, and reading between the lines, it doesn’t look good. That’s not to say the “unthinkable” will definitely happen, but at the end of the day we all know that the football club is bigger than any one individual and should the Spaniard decide to fly the nest, well, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

It’s happened before and it will happen again, We’ll get good money for him which, hopefully, will be ploughed straight back into the team and Roy will be able to draft in two or three players for the money. The team are already looking much stronger than last season, and even look stronger now than the season before last when we were pipped to the title by the Mancs. I seem to remember Torres missing a large chunk of that particular season through injury as well – it didn’t hurt us too much then, and it won’t hurt us too much if he does decide to up sticks and seek pastures (Champions League football) anew this time round.

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