Fernando’s betrayal won’t be forgotten

I TOLD you to expect the unexpected; not sure this is quite what we had in mind, though.

It wasn’t supposed to be such an eventful column. Fulham could be summed up in one word — phew. The league will grant us the points once they’ve removed our embedded fingernails. The week’s other petty squabble about sexism, aka “how Murdoch gets rid of unwanted employees is his business” wasn’t very inspiring either.

We were in for Adam and Suarez, their clubs trying to persuade them that heading off to pastures new mid-season was a slap in the face and perhaps they should show a bit of loyalty. The nerve of some people… And then came the bombshell, brought to you exclusively by that ghastly contrivance Twitter.

Not a fan. It just seems a faster, more effective way of spreading something extremely unpleasant. It is worse than promiscuity. It doesn’t come more unsavoury than the news your best player (when he felt like it) wanted to leave for a club you despise. Twitter sends a thousand falsehoods spiralling around the globe, but yet again truth proves to be stranger than fiction. That’s before we even mention Andy Carroll.

We don’t have many deserters in our history, and this proves the spiritual bankruptcy of cynicism. Everyone agonised and spewed forth their unsurprising yet forgivable bile, but what of those who shrugged and said “they’re all the same anyway”? It never works. The pain of betrayal lingers because you never think heroes are this calculating and callous, no matter how often it’s happened to others.

Thoughts turned septic; songs sung, idolatry exhibited, whether he deliberately left it this late so Chelsea could confound City and back Liverpool into a corner.

In the Tom & Jerry cartoons, it’s the moment when the cat looks in the mirror and a donkey brays back.

There weren’t so much ‘hints’ of tapping-up as flashing neon signs. He who is without sin, and all that.

Looking at ourselves for a moment, was the Suarez deal meant to placate Torres? The tardy bidding increase suggests so, yet it now seems a flotilla of superstars wouldn’t have kept Torres here.

Any hint of bending over backwards for him now evokes painful memories (ahem). He’s been snippy and lazy all season, don’t let the stats fool you. David Villa long ago bluntly revealed he’d wanted the move last summer, which suggests some kind of deal was made.

A fee back then would have been swallowed by debt repayment and delayed the takeover for God knows how long. Did trouble erupt when Don Torres called in the favour? £50 million looks pretty good after two injury-ravaged seasons, a lousy World Cup and the disaffected inconsequentiality he served up for Hodgson. It is the destination that burns. It shouldn’t matter if we’re going to rebuild anyway; Chelsea are welcome to their short-term sparkle.

If it’s true that Torres is bored of intrigue and back-stabbing, good luck with Emenalo, Terry and Abramovich.

WE COULD cite 2004 as the year Gerrard stayed and Owen left. Trouble is that someone else left unquestioning veneration behind; a certain Wayne Rooney. We tormented Evertonians, telling them the money saved them and they bit blindly on the Judas bait all clubs use on such occasions.

Schadenfraude’s a bitch, eh? Do we also need the cash to rebuild? Do we need him at Chelsea because it helps paint Torres black, not grey? The lad at least waited, which is more than Mascherano did, but why so late? Maybe we will emulate 1987, when Rush left and Barnes, Beardsley and Aldridge arrived. After nearly 20 years of transfer fiascos, fans no longer have the same belief the right choices will be made and whilst Suarez is an exciting prospect Carroll already looks like a tax ruse.

Value is a redundant term in football anyway, but there are so many pitfalls involved in this that I wouldn’t know where to start listing them. As for Chelsea’s new star, many are in lynch mode and understandably so. We oldies do become tearfully nostalgic at such (thankfully rare) moments.

Ask yourself this; when did Dalglish, Hansen, Callaghan and co ever have to answer the same loyalty/success questions as Owen, Gerrard, Mascherano or Torres? True, Torres has not only said “no”, he has said “f*** you” and that won’t ever be forgotten. In the ferocious unforgiving glare of betrayal, nuance dies.