KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum We are stronger now how exactly?

"The end is the beginning is the end." (Smashing Pumpkins)

I know that perspective is hard to come by when it comes to Liverpool supporters these days, but "better off" is always a relative term. We've lost the best lone striker in the world, with a squad largely set up to play formations that require a lone striker. It doesn't matter whose fault that is, but that is the sad reality; we stand weaker as a team today.

Now before you rabid communists stick the knife in yet again (don't try deny it; everything you have done and said since Friday regarding Torres is textbook communism), let me just say that Torres was always going to leave; FSG's plan of gradually building would never fit with his need to win something now. Torres didn't abandon us any less than he abandoned his childhood dream of obtaining honour and glory simultaneously. He's grown up now; he realizes you can't realistically have both in a foreign country. He will forget us now; the LFC fans' open-minded reception of his transfer request will certainly make that easy. He is almost certainly thinking how two-faced we are to have propped him up so high only to fall on him like a pack of dogs when he dared to suggest we show some ambition now.

But how will the team stand tomorrow? We still own no wingers or quality left back, positions we should have been addressing with some urgency since the summer quite frankly, but water under the bridge and all that. There are signs that Suarez and Carroll could be a good partnership given their abilities, and I will enjoy watching us taking corners for once. But the question is whether they will be able to play together, whether these two renegades can actually work within the LFC collective. "A biter and a fighter" I dubbed them yesterday (there's a song there, I know it, and hopefully someone can make something out of it, just hopefully something with a bit more class than "We f*cking hate Leeds, Leeds, Leeds. Leeds, Leeds, Leeds."). I'm also sure Kenny is the man with the right plan; I can't believe he'd sign off on spending 35m for a guy who was in the Championship 6 months ago if he didn't see something he could make majestic.

Have we made the right steps? Probably. Torres was no longer a fit with the club, both in purpose and spirit. He will leave a large hole, but at the same time the doubts about his ability to work with his team mates, his ability to bring his game face to each match, and his ability to remain fit are no longer concerns of ours. Perhaps his leaving is the final, necessary cast-off from the H&G era; perhaps only now can we truly move forward again.

With the new "spend as you earn" rules for clubs coming into effect in the summer, a team finally unbound from the last few seasons of doubt and in-fighting, owners who showed they will heavily overpay if they must, and the mere presence of the King, I think we're in a better place than many of our rivals, even if we don't reach our target EPL position this season due to too many new faces and positional weaknesses. I thought I would be upset about having to change my avatar, but I don't feel that way. And that's good.