Analysis: Five reasons Torres flopped so badly at Chelsea.
With Fernando Torres sealing an emotional return to his first club, Atletico Madrid, it seems a good time to look back on the Spaniard’s Jekyll and Hyde-like career in the Premier League.
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After starting so well with Liverpool, scoring 33 goals in a phenomenal first campaign at Anfield, Torres became regarded as one of the best strikers in the world, also enjoying success wth Spain as he struck the winner in the Euro 2008 final victory over Germany.
Although Torres could not deliver silverware to the Reds, he was in superb form again in 2008/09 as his goalscoring form saw the club come close to winning the Premier League title despite eventually losing out to Manchester United.
When Chelsea paid £50m to sign Torres from Liverpool in January 2011, the fee did not seem at all ridiculous as it looked like the Blues were bringing in an awesome talent who could be a real hit at Stamford Bridge. Incredibly, however, he only managed one goal in his first half-season with the club and never recovered.
Where did it go so wrong for Fernando? Here are five explanations for his drastic dip in form in the last few years…
1) Playing style
One thing that may have worked against Torres, particularly in his early days at Chelsea, is the difference in playing style at the club. At Liverpool the team was largely built around a very direct game and the combination play between himself and Steven Gerrard, which seemed to work particularly well on the big Anfield pitch where he could get in behind defences more effectively. At Chelsea, Didier Drogba was very much the main man when Torres arrived and is a very different kind of centre-forward.
2) Fitness
Torres had been struggling with niggling injuries in the first few months of the 2010/11 season, scoring only 9 goals in 23 Premier League games for Liverpool, in comparison to his 18 goals in 22 league matches the previous season. Clearly, the Spaniard had lost a bit of that blistering pace that made him so deadly for the Reds and he wasn’t in the best shape for the beginning of his Chelsea career. Still, the high-profile nature of the transfer meant he had big pressure on him to play and perform well instantly, which will no doubt have put pressure on him in a time when he perhaps needed a rest.
3) Started young
It may just be that Torres was an early bloomer in a similar way to Michael Owen. Having started playing regularly at the age of just 17 for Atletico Madrid – and becoming club captain at 19 – it’s not so surprising to think he may have been suffering burn-out by the time he joined Chelsea at the age of 26.
4) Managerial changes
Working consistently under Rafael Benitez at Liverpool, Torres had a manager who knew his game and clearly inspired confidence in him over the years. At Chelsea, however, he arrived at a time when Carlo Ancelotti’s job was in doubt, with the Italian leaving just a few months later. Following that, the likes of Andre Villas-Boas, Roberto Di Matteo, Rafael Benitez and Jose Mourinho all arrived and left in quick succession, meaning Torres never quite had that connection again – though it may not be a coincidence that he found his best form in a Chelsea shirt during Benitez’s brief stint at the club.
5) Big-fee pressure
Above all, the huge pressure of the £50m price tag on his shoulders will have been playing on Torres’ mind throughout all his difficult games with Chelsea. The nature of the modern game means that expectation and reminder cannot be shaken off, and although fitness, managerial changes and tactical systems may have legitimately worked against Torres and prevented him finding his best form, there is the feeling among fans that when you pay £50m for a player there can be no excuse. It looks clear now that the player’s confidence is totally shot and it is a sad ending to the career of someone who looked like having the potential to go down as one of the greats of the modern era.