Fernando Torres: Liverpool portrayed me as a 'traitor' when I joined Chelsea

The Atletico Madrid striker - whose move to Chelsea was then a British transfer record fee - claimed he had to move because Liverpool were keen to sign younger players for future success rather than fight for the Premier League title.

Torres won the FA Cup, Champions League and Europa League at Chelsea despite his four-year period at the club largely being viewed as a failure when he scored only 20 goals in 110 matches for the London club.

He scored 65 goals in 102 matches for Liverpool, but won nothing in that period. In a strong condemnation of Liverpool's former director of football Damian Comolli, Torres said he had to quit Anfield to win trophies.

And he also clams he has been vindicated by Liverpool's lack of real success since he left.

"Comolli told me that the new owners (Fenway Sports Group), they had an idea of how to spend their investment," Torres is quoted as saying in an extract from Ring of Fire: Liverpool FC into the 21st Century - The Players' Stories.

"They wanted to bring in young players, to build something new. I was thinking to myself, this takes time to work. It takes two, three, four, maybe even 10 years.

"I didn't have that time. I was 27 years old. I did not have time to wait. I wanted to win. Here we are five years later and they are still trying to build - around the same position in the league as when I left.

"It was presented as if I was a traitor. It was not like this in the discussion(s).

"Liverpool could not admit they were doing something wrong with the whole team. They had to find a guilty one."