Chelsea F.C. top flight, which lasted 86 matches from 20 March 2004 to 26 October 2008. They secured the record on 12 August 2007, beating the previous record of 63 matches unbeaten set by Liverpool between 1978 and 1980. Chelsea's streak of eleven consecutive away league wins, set between 5 April 2008 and 6 December 2008, is also a record for the English top flight. Their £50 million purchase of Fernando Torres from Liverpool in January 2011 was the record transfer fee paid by a British club until Ángel Di María signed for Manchester United in August 2014 for £59.7 million. Chelsea,
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