The Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini has revealed that the club became extremely close to signing the Liverpool striker Fernando Torres before Chelsea managed to sign the Spaniard for a British transfer record fee of £ 50 million in 2011.

Fernando Torres became the most expensive signing in British football, but he has struggled to recreate the same form at Stamford Bridge as well. He has managed just 20 goals in almost 2 years at Chelsea, during which time he has been responsible for the sacking of three managers. Now, Chelsea have appointed the former Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez in the hope of getting the best out of him.

The Spaniard Rafael Benitez is widely regarded to be the one manager who has got the best out of Fernando Torres, as he scored more than 50 goals in just 70 Premier league appearances. During this time, Torres was regarded as one of the best strikers in the world. He managed to attract the attention of a lot of clubs around the world including Manchester City according to Mancini. However, the Manchester club decided not to pursue it because of the exorbitant transfer fee demanded by Liverpool. City instead decided to go for the Bosnian striker Edin Dzeko.

“Was I ever interested in Torres? Yes, two years ago we had a chance. There was one moment it could have happened but then we decided on other players. The price was too high, yes. So instead we went for Edin. We had four or five strikers in mind at the time. We were probably missing a player with different qualities like Edin. He is strong in the air and is different from Fernando,” said Mancini ahead of the meeting with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. City need to win this match in order to go top of the table.