It got glossed over because we had bigger problems on and off field, but by his final season here he was a shadow of the player he once was. The injuries took their toll, he went from electrifying to ponderous.
Torres in his debut season might be the most I've ever enjoyed watching a single player. After years of failures in the transfer market I can't describe how exciting it was to have a genuinely world class centre forward who terrorised defences. By the time he left though he was heavy footed and unthreatening.
Never forgiven him for leaving us for Chelsea. That's not to say I have any grudge against him, I just have no connection. He's in the same camp as someone like Suarez. In both cases the players considered Liverpool a stepping stone.
Torres was actually banging them in left, right and centre his final few games for us. Granted, it was against Bolton, Blackpool and Wolves, but a noticeable improvement was found there. I was really surprised when he dropped off right when switching teams.
Either way, as for the final statement, I think it's not true at all. Torres signed when we'd come from two Champions League finals in two years, explicitly to win the Premier League and the Champions League. Atlético were rather mediocre at the time, he'd never go to Real and Barcelona would also have been an unlikely transfer to someone as Madrileño as Torres is. Abroad was his only option for winning things and had the clowns not swindled the money and we'd been able to have the players Rafa wanted such as Villa partnering him up front, then it would've been a different story altogether. As it was, the trifecta of the Alonso/Mascherano departures, the Rafa departure and what to Torres felt like a lack of ambition broke the final straw of the camel. While it's easy to say that he shouldn't have gone to Chelsea, for us to sell him for £50 million at that time, the way we did, was one of the best moves ever.
The Torres + Babel sales paid for Suárez and Carroll and then we sold those for about £90 million in total - in other words crucial money later added to the balance that resulted in Firmino, Mané and Salah arriving here. They cost a total of £105 million or thereabouts, almost £90 million of which you could trace back to letting Torres leave. While Sterling was sold too cheap and should've had add-ons taking it to £75 million, Torres was a great deal for the club.