31 January 2011 - All Those Pounds Brought A Lot Of Pressure

On 31 January 2011, the last day of the British transfer window saw a flurry of activity that resulted in two records being broken for the sales of strikers Fernando Torres and Andy Carroll.

The transfer domino was started by Chelsea, who bought Spanish striker Fernando Torres (center) from Liverpool. Torres, who joined Liverpool in 2007, had scored 65 goals in 102 league appearances for the Merseysiders. His performance drew the attention of defending league champions Chelsea, who made a bid of £35M which Liverpool rejected, even though Torres had submitted a transfer request. But faced with an impending release clause due to be triggered in the summer, they eventually accepted Chelsea's second bid, reported to be approximately £40M--a record amount paid by a British club.

In order to fill the void left by the departure of Torres, Liverpool acted quickly to sign strikers Andy Carroll (right) from Newcastle for £35M and Luis Suárez (left) from Ajax for £22.7M, to reach a grand total of £94.7 spent on the three players. Carroll's fee was the highest ever paid for a British player.

But although Torres and Carroll set the records, Suárez turned out to be the best purchase of the trio, going on to star for Liverpool while the other two struggled at their clubs.

13 July 2011 - There's A "Reds" Joke In There Somewhere

On 13 July 2011, Liverpool played in China for the first time, beating Guangdong Sunray Cave in a friendly, 4-3.

The match kicked off Liverpool's preseason Asian tour, which also included stops in Malaysia and South Korea. They had previously visited the region in 2009, when they played exhibitions in Thailand and Singapore. Their opponent in China, Guangdong, was founded in 2007 and had just been promoted from the league's third tier to the second.

Playing at the Tianhe Stadium in Guangzhou, the visitors got off to a strong start with early goals from Christian Poulsen (19') and David N'gog (21'), but Guangdong striker Ricardo Steer halved the margin just before the break.

Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish swapped his entire side out for the second half and got goals from Conor Coady (72') and new signing Andy Carroll (89') to push their lead to 4-1. But Guangdong scored twice in the 90th minute to close the final gap to a surprisingly narrow 4-3.

31 January 2011 - All Those Pounds Bring A Lot Of Pressure

On 31 January 2011, the last day of the British transfer window saw a flurry of activity that resulted in two records being broken for the sales of strikers Fernando Torres and Andy Carroll.

The transfer domino was started by Chelsea, who bought Spanish striker Fernando Torres (center) from Liverpool. Torres, who joined Liverpool in 2007, had scored 65 goals in 102 league appearances for the Merseysiders. His performance drew the attention of defending league champions Chelsea, who made a bid of £35M which Liverpool rejected, even though Torres had submitted a transfer request. But faced with an impending release clause due to be triggered in the summer, they eventally accepted Chelsea's second bid, reported to be approximately £40M--a record amount paid by a British club.

In order to fill the void left by the departure of Torres, Liverpool acted quickly to sign strikers Andy Carroll (right) from Newcastle for £35M and Luis Suárez (left) from Ajax for £22.7M, to reach a grand total of £94.7 spent on the three players. Carroll's fee was the highest ever paid for a British player.

But although Torres and Carroll set the records, Suárez turned out to be the best purchase of the trio, providing four goals and five assists for the remainder of that season. To date, he has twelve goals and eleven assists for Liverpool in 35 appearances across all competitions. Both Torres and Carroll have struggled at their new clubs, scoring a total of eleven goals between them (six from Carroll and five from Torres).