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| Torres has continued to win silverware despite a drop in his own form. |
Accolade after accolade followed. He was the first Liverpool player to score twenty league goals in a season since Robbie Fowler, he was Liverpool's top scorer with twenty nine goals in his first season (beating Michael Owen's tally for the reds) and was named in the top fifty Liverpool players ever at the end of his first season with the club. By the end of the following season his tally stood at fifty goals in just 84 appearances since arriving in the UK.
Added to this fine club form was a European Championship title with Spain and the 2010 World Cup was also looming, a tournament that his home nation Spain were clear favourites for. However the warning signs were already there that injuries were catching up with him.
Fernando had a number of absences from the Liverpool side due to hamstring injuries of varying severity around that time and in the run up to the the World Cup he underwent knee surgery on 18th April 2010. He was selected for the Spain side anyway during their group games but the fizz and sparkle appeared to be missing from his game. Many at the time assumed he was just lacking fitness as he featured less and less for the Spanish national side as the tournament progressed. He came on as a 105th minute substitute in the final (a game which Spain would go on to win) but his status as Spain's undisputed number nine had taken bit of a dip.
His form for Liverpool thereafter showed patches of the old Torres but he never recaptured his best form again. A £50 million transfer to Chelsea seemed to weigh down on already tired looking legs even further. Whether it was the injuries that taken the edge from him or a lack of confidence is still unclear and despite continuing to win silverware at both club and international level he is currently a shadow of the once fearsome striker that terrified opposition defences up and down the land.
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| Van Nistelrooy often carried an average United side after the turn of the millennium. |
Starting off as a central midfielder at youth level before being converted into a striker he began in the Dutch second division with Den Bosch before moving first to Heerenveen then to PSV Eindhoven. In his début season for PSV he finished top scorer in the Netherlands and second league top scorer Europe wide. He was on the cusp of signing for Manchester United in the summer of 2000 before the deal was called off because of concerns over his knee. Days later it failed during a training session and the deal was off.
Sir Alex Ferguson had promised Van Nistelrooy that if the Dutchman made a full recovery he would come back in the for him. When Van Nistelrooy happily did the deal was finally agreed in April 2001. The next few years of playing for Manchester United were the best of his career. He combined the lethal finishing of a classic number nine with the strength and mobility of a deep lying centre forward.
However he missed much of the 2004-05 season after suffering another serious knee injury. Upon his return, whilst still knowing where the net was he became much more a penalty box type of player. After his famous bust up with Sir Alex in 2006 he was sold to Real Madrid and had something of a rebirth in Spain. He finished as top scorer in his first season in La Liga but thereafter he suffered yet another knee injury and during subsequent spells with Hamburg and Malaga he was a shadow of his former self.
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| David Hirst could have been an England great. |
International recognition came shortly afterwards with a début 45 minutes for England against Australia. A taste of what might have been came when he was paired with Shearer for a friendly against France. With Gary Lineker out injured the duo in the short term at least were battling it out for a chance to partner the England legend during Euro '92, but in the long term were being touted as the future of English football.
Many, including former England manager Bobby Robson felt Hirst was in pole position to nail down a place in the starting line up and become his country's main man into the middle of the decade but before half time against the French, Shearer scored and was chosen to partner Lineker. Hirst never played for England again.
Through this period Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson was also interested in the Yorkshireman and had made numerous attempts to sign him. With little progress being made on the deal the Scot eventually signed Eric Cantona instead and the rest is history.
Later in 1992 Hirst suffered a severe ankle injury during a game with Arsenal and it marked the beginning of a period over the next five years where he was rarely available for selection by Sheffield Wednesday. He was sold to Southampton for the 1997/98 season and enjoyed a brief return to form before the injuries set in once more. He retired from the game aged 32 in January 2000 on the advice of his doctors.
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| A young Fowler in Liverpool colours. |
He made his début in the first leg of a league cup game against Fulham in 1993 and in the return leg at Anfield stunned everyone by scoring all five of Liverpool's goals in a hammering of the west London side. He scored a 4 minute hat trick against a fearsome Arsenal defence in August 1994 and scored 30 goals or more across all competitions for three consecutive seasons for the reds.
His golden period started to draw to a close with the emergence of Michael Owen during the 1997/98 season. Whilst for a time the pairing won silverware and started regularly together his individual goal scoring rate slowed and eventually he requested a transfer, joining Leeds United in the Autumn of 2001.
He started off reasonably well in Yorkshire, but the following season a long standing hip injury began to affect his form and despite maintaining a respectable goal scoring rate it looked as though he has lost some of his cutting edge.
He was sold to Manchester City at the start of the 2002/03 season and suffered from patchy form for most of his time there. He did manage to score in the Manchester derby though before eventually being sold back to Liverpool in January 2006 where he spent the remainder of his top flight career in football.
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| By the time Owen was at Manchester United his best years were behind him. |
He was famed for being a goal poacher of the highest order throughout his career, but early on he also had electric pace that allowed him to beat most offside traps and tear through on goal with ease. He won the Premier League golden boot during his first full season in 1997/98 and retained it the following season.
During the summer of 1998 he also went to the World Cup with England and played an increasingly prominent role for the Three Lions. In England's last sixteen match with hated rivals Argentina he scored one of the most iconic goals in the history of the national side and caught the attention of many round the world.
Despite scoring a further brace of goals the following league season a turning point in his career came on 12th April 1999. During a game against Leeds United he suffered a serious hamstring injury that dramatically reduced his pace over short distances. Owen later blamed this on too many big games too young and after the injury he fell back on being more of a goal poacher than springing offside traps from the half way line.
His form was still sufficient to get him a move to Real Madrid at the start of the 2004/05 season but he was never a regular starter. His time in Spain was brief and the following season he was back in England playing for Newcastle. He showed flashes of the old Michael Owen but around this point in his career he began to become seriously weighed down by injuries. He arrived at the 2006 World Cup not fully fit and suffered a serious knee injury during a group game with Sweden.
He was never the same after that despite soldiering on with first Newcastle then later as a bit part player with Manchester United.
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