I was absolutely devastated when Fernando Torres left Liverpool. He was such a great player.
I wouldn’t have minded if he had gone back to Spain, to Barcelona or Real Madrid. He was capable of playing for them, but with him going to Chelsea, that hurt us all. You can’t compare Chelsea to Liverpool, but he went there and that hurt me. It hurt us all.
But time moves on. He’s not a Scouser, he wasn’t born in Liverpool, he’s free to do what he wants.
He went to Chelsea and it hurt us all at the time, but you can tell he still loves the club. I certainly could working with him at the Legends game on Saturday.
He was desperate, desperate to score his goal and delighted with the response of the fans. He loved the day, absolutely loved the day. Time moves on and old wounds heal. He is part of the Liverpool family.
Amazing what Liverpool have done for Sven
The Legends game was the perfect day. What the club did for Sven, after what he’s done for football, was amazing. A very humble, nice gentleman.
It was nice working alongside Sven with Rushie and John Barnes. Sven knows his stuff. We went two goals behind but then, kicking into the Kop, we turned it around which is very fitting because we’ve done it so many times.
We changed the system and the players, everyone got a game. At half-time we were up the wall a little bit but we knew what we had to do, make more chances, and we did that.
You’ve got managers on the pitch too, like Steven Gerrard. He took the game by the scruff of the neck in the second half. He knew what had to be done.
He didn’t even have to venture forward, he just had to stop them while making chances for us and it worked out great. It was brilliant.
And a hell of a lot of money has been raised for people of Merseyside in need, children, and we get 10% to go towards the ex-players who need help or might need help in the future through Forever Reds.
Liverpool is such a special club and we’ve proved it time and time again. We stick together. Look what we did after Hillsborough, fighting for years, led by the families.
It’s a special club, a special fan-base, and a special ground. There are some fantastic grounds around the country that have been re-built, but Liverpool kept our spiritual home.
All the players after the game were just in awe of how the ground looks now. The Anfield Road, the Main stand, the atmosphere.
Not many clubs, English at least, could do what Liverpool did for a charity game. It’s just beyond belief. All the times we’ve done it, we’ve always got big crowds.
To get 60,000 people was amazing. Half of them were kids who can’t get to matches. That’s the sad side of it, they can’t get to matches because of the Liverpool ticketing situation.
They’re so in demand, they turn down so many people every home game. And these kids just want to see Liverpool win and we did! They took great delight in that and celebrated every goal.
That was the highlight for me. It really was amazing and it was just a fantastic day.
Klopp showed his class with surprise Sven visit
Jurgen turned up to the hotel to see Sven before the game. Not many other people would do that.
It was his day off, but he went out of his way to do that to come and see Sven. He had a good word with us too, he sat down with me, Barnesy, and Rushy at our table.
He also went around the team and spoke to all the players. It shows you the stature of the man. He’s such a genuine, brilliant man.
The day was perfect, it was just a super, super day for everyone.