The plus side of never signing players...

Transfer deadline day. Stirs one of three emotions: loathing that your best player is leaving (in our case, nearly always to Barcelona); schadenfreude in your rivals selling their best player; or over-egged optimism that the player you’ve just signed will, despite being just one player, turn your mediocre top-six hangers-on into title contenders.

The January window nearly always means the middle one for us – as Wenger spends 31 days convincing the fans, his players and probably even himself that the squad he has is good enough.

That’s not the voice of cynicism speaking. Even the BBC have been quipping about it during their livetext coverage of the day’s transfers:

1419: To all you Arsenal fans who thought you wouldn't get a mention on transfer deadline day, you were wrong. Are you ready for this? BBC Lincolnshire report that 20-year-old Gunners defender Gavin Hoyte has extended his loan deal at Lincoln until the end of the season. You can pick yourselves up off the floor now...

This window has been dominated, of course, by Fernando Torres declaring he wants to go to Chelsea. It’s a blow to Dalglish’s revolution (apparently a win at Wolves and a lucky 1-0 home win against Fulham accounts for a revolution these days) and Torres is now about as popular on Merseyside as an episode of ‘Celebrity Come Dine With Me’ featuring Kelvin McKenzie, Boris Johnson, Jon Venables and the Chief of South Yorkshire Police circa 1989. (“It’s Jon’s turn to cook and tonight’s speciality is a dish Jon learnt to cook some years ago: slop.”)

Torres is being reviled for requesting a move after apparently committing his future to Liverpool last summer. Fans and ex-players across Merseyside have been condemning him for “moving for the money”, “having his head turned” or “being greedy”. I also love that they are upset with Chelsea for the timing of their bid – despite themselves bidding £35m for Newcastle’s Andy Carroll this afternoon, deadline day.

Surely the only thing Torres is greedy of, is wanting to win trophies. Isn’t that what we were told every time Vieira, Henry, Hleb and latterly Fabregas were linked with Barcelona? Wasn’t it expected that these players would want to move for the chance to win silverware? Don’t the media tell us regularly that Fabregas will go because Arsenal haven’t won a trophy for six years?

Well Liverpool haven’t won a trophy for five years, and any fan who thinks Liverpool have as good a chance of winning trophies as Chelsea, is deluded. The fact is Torres signed up for success – and it hasn’t been delivered. The fact he wants to leave is no surprise and, for once, I don’t believe it’s about money.

The problem, as usual, is that Liverpool and their fans think they have some God-given right to have the best players, to have success, to not have to sell. That’s delusional. The reality is they are a long way from those things nowadays.

Of course, come midnight, that same delusion will see them hailing Dalglish for signing a replacement and getting rid of Torres, who they now despise.

In the meantime I’ll be at home, flicking occasionally between ‘Come Dine With Me’ and the breaking transfer news on SkySports. At some point, I expect to ask myself two Liverpool-related questions:

1: Does £35m for Andy Carroll (more than David Villa, Didier Drogba, Wayne Rooney, Carlos Tevez and Edin Dzeko) stink of desperation?

2: Did Liverpool learn nothing from signing Aquilani as a panic-buy replacement for Alonso? He, like Carroll, was injured - and spent three months on the bench watching a big hole where his predecessor used to be.

Schadenfreude.