"great players" tend to keep a team ticking over when merged in / around better world class players.
With all respects - a Nasri, Arshavin or RVP, or even two of them, compared to Torres would be a step back in terms of goal scoring ability, marketing and drawing other talent into the club.
Yes, but a step up in midfield scoring ability. Its all a balance, if the midfield scored 30 more goals a season, then the strikers could score less and the team could still do significantly better. Maxi/Cole/Javanovic's contribution is pathetic, though Maxi was significantly improved under Hodgson vs last season, still mostly rubbish though.
As others said, yes the track record of good deals on the cheap isn't good at all at Liverpool, but the scouts could have picked 10 fantastic free transfers and Benitez just picked the one 10million risky option, who knows. End of the day there ARE great value deals out there and 40mil could buy a LOT of players.
Essentially what if Torres gets injured tomorrow and out for a year, the team are boned, sell Torres while he's worth more, buy 5 replacements, the chance of one getting injured would be the same, the chance of all 5 missing a year through injury is low. Liverpool have zero depth, and several first team players who are simply not good enough, its the same argument as losing Ronaldo. You can lose your main goal scorer but improve the rest of the team enough to still win things. Though in that case Utd didn't reinvest most of the money, they did get Valencia, and now Hernandez, both pretty damn good value, and both have been very good buys. They could have afforded another what, 4 players at similar prices, maybe a couple would suck, maybe a couple more would be brilliant, maybe you buy a 10million player who turns into one worth 50mil and make a killer profit.
If the rest of the team was significantly stronger and could easily cope with an injured Torres, I would probably lean towards keeping him(unless he really wanted out), but in a team that would be in serious goal scoring trouble if he were injured, selling and replacing with several players is a far smarter bet.
This late in the window though it will be hard to get exactly who you want. Suarez is a very good start, you never know, he might score more than Torres ever would have, grab N'zogbia for 10mil, he'll easily agree to go, Wigan can't afford to not let him go, and he's better than any winger they have. Adam's aswell and you have one player whose potentially world class in Suarez and two proven performers in the league, both who bring goals and frankly N'zogbia will do FAR better at a better club, he'll score more and create a load of chances.
