Atletico not giving up hope on Torres staying

Jun 26 2007 by Nick Smith, Liverpool Daily Post

ATLETICO MADRID have refused to admit defeat in their determination to prevent captain Fernando Torres joining Liverpool.

The Spaniards appeared to be resigned to losing their captain when it emerged that they were in the market for a replacement striker and had a £17million bid for Villareal’s Diego Forlan turned down.

But the club’s president Enrique Cerezo last night denied any contact had been made between Atletico and Liverpool, who are lining up a bid to secure the 23-year-old.

“We’ve received no offer from Liverpool or any other club or player,” he said.

“There is nothing linking Torres with any team. He’s on holidays, he’s resting and he’ll return to work on July 9.”

Cerezo’s stance backs the initial line taken by Atletico last week when Torres was first revealed as one of Rafael Benitez’s top targets and they insisted he was not for sale.

And Liverpool’s initial hopes of netting the Spanish international for £16m were then quashed by Madrid’s insistence that the £27m release clause would have to be activated before they would consider offers for him. That would almost double Liverpool’s record transfer layout on one player, which was Djibril Cisse in 2004.

Cisse’s status could also hold the key to LIverpool’s next move for Torres, as Bolton and Marseille remain in contention to buy the striker, who Benitez will not consider loaning out for another season.

A fee in the region of £7-8m for the Frenchman would help finance a new club record bid for Torres, who only has two years left to run on his current contract.

Any deal is unlikely to involve making Peter Crouch going to Spain as part exchange, as has been reported.

Two imminent arrivals on Merseyside, however, are Hungarian duo Krisztian Nemeth, 18, and 17-year-old Andras Simon, who will arrive in the country from Budapest tonight.

The players, who both excelled for Hungary at the UEFA Under-17s championships in 2006, join the Anfield club from MTK Hungary, who this month announced that they have set up a partnership with Liverpool.

Among other things, the collaboration allows Liverpool’s youngsters to gain first team experience in the Hungarian league.