Fernando Torres Adebayor in the race for the Premier League golden boot.<ref name="Statistics: top scorers: 2007/2008"></ref> Torres was subject to media speculation that Chelsea were willing to pay £50 million to sign him, but Torres responded by saying it would be "many years" before he left Liverpool. Liverpool co-owner Tom Hicks also negated the idea of a transfer, saying he would not allow Torres to leave the club at any price. Torres made a scoring start to the 2008–09 Premier League season with a 25-yard shot into the bottom right-hand corner away at Sunderland, which was the only goal in a 1–0
Transfer (association football) English record was broken twice in the space of a few weeks, both times by Manchester United, who first signed Dutch striker Ruud van Nistelrooy for £19 million, and then signed Argentine midfielder Juan Sebastián Verón for £28.1 million. A year later, they broke the English record fee again by signing Rio Ferdinand from Leeds United for a fee in the region of £29 million, 11 years after Liverpool had paid a mere tenth of that figure to set an English record transfer fee when they signed Dean Saunders. It took two weeks for the record to be broken when