In the grand scheme of things, the three-and-a-half years between July 2007 and January 2011 were a manifestly average time to be a Liverpool fan.
They weren't particularly dark - those years were still to come - and they weren't particularly great either, with no trophies and just a Premier League runners up award to shout about. With no Istanbul but also no 'Stoke City 6-1 Liverpool', they were the 'meh' years of the club's modern history. Or, rather, they would have been, if not for one man.
On Friday Fernando Torres announced that he would be bringing to an end a career that hasn't gone his way since his move to Chelsea in 2011.