Sunday 18th September 2011. Manchester United versus Chelsea. United were winning 3-1 but Fernando Torres was playing magnificently for their opponents. He was twisting, turning and jinking his way through United's defence in a manner reminiscent of the way he did on the same ground 2 years previous in that most lauded of 4-1 victories for Liverpool. He had even scored Chelsea's goal with a sublime finish to momentarily silence the Stretford end. Outwardly I was unmoved. I displayed little emotion to the people who surrounded me in the pub but inside I was getting those old feelings back. I was willing his every touch to be perfect, desperate for him to succeed despite the badge that he wore upon his now blue clad chest. Maybe it was because his opponents we're United, maybe it was just pity. For 9 months since he walked out of the Shankly gates Torres had dropped to a point lower than a dinosaur fossil. Either way, watching him play so well against such foes as United was, for whatever reason, bringing me joy again.
Then it happened. He received the ball in the United penalty area and with a lovely piece of skill that Liverpool fans had seen him execute dozens of times, in an instant he was around the goal keeper. He had an open goal just 7 yards out. He had scored at Old Trafford yet again and was finally showing why he was and still could be the premier striker in world football. Only, he hadn't scored. He had missed a chance that a 5 year old would have put away. Instead of celebrating he was kneeling face down on the floor humiliated, at the mercy of Old Trafford no less. Everyone in the pub, no matter where their personal allegiances lay was on their feet raucously laughing, pointing at the big screen and revelling in the moment. I remained seated, jaw wide open, no emotion showing yet inside I felt it. It was still there. My stomach turned and my heart went out to him. He was a laughing stock and with that one ill fated swing of his left boot he had destroyed his confidence and reputation which so far both remain in tatters. 'Oh Fernando, how did it come to this?'.
Fast forward six months and Fernando Torres is now closing in on 24 consecutive hours on the pitch without a goal. Unfathomable. His self belief is at such a low ebb that he won't even step up to take a penalty when his team have a game in the bag against Championship side Birmingham. Gone is the gliding movement reminiscent of a ballet dancer along with the predatory finishing skills, explosive power and fantastic skill. He has had as many managers in the past year as he has scored league goals. The vast majority of Liverpool fans continue to watch his struggles with glee. "The grass wasn't greener was it dick head?" seems to be the general consensus.
For the last couple of weeks I have actively tried to ignore Chelsea matches and highlights. I just can't bring myself to watch him struggle any more. Friends or family relay his recent woes on a game by game basis. "Torres is on the bench again" "Torres didn't score again!" "Torres had a shocker". Every time I hear this my mind races with thoughts of what could have been. It's not entirely based on emotion and sentimentality though, Liverpool need a Fernando Torres in their side now, desperately. His replacement, Luis Suarez has been an unqualified success but he doesn't score anywhere near the amount of goals that Torres used to. Andy Carroll hasn't lived up to anyone's expectations and the absence of a goal scorer in Liverpool's team is undermining all their good work and costing them too many points. If Fernando Torres, the Torres who lit up Anfield, were in this Liverpool team alongside the new icon Luis Suarez Liverpool would be an infinitely more clinical and therefore better side. Torres would be scoring goals for fun with a player as creative as Suarez next to him. The only thing preventing Liverpool's return to the Champions League this season is a deadly finisher. Their defence is solid, their approach play and ability to create chances has been more than adequate but they lack a killer instinct. Their woeful finishing has cost them at least 15 league points that their overall play has merited this season. The fact that Torres has fallen so horrifically in London doesn't stop my mind from wondering what could and should have been. For 5 hours Suarez and Torres we're team mates lest we forget.
Of course a great proportion of Liverpool fans wouldn't have Torres back. Many, on principle wouldn't consider it. "He left and the club moved on, why go back to someone who walked out on us?" Others (if they can get past the unpalatable nature of his departure) would reject him due to more pragmatic reasons, pointing to the fact that Torres is no longer the player that he was. His form was sliding at Anfield during his final 18 months.
Both views are entirely understandable but the fact remains that despite the crude exit and the fluctuating form in his final season, he still scored a hell of a lot of goals. In Rafa Benitez' final season, Liverpool were turgid. They finished a lowly a 7th yet Torres still plundered 18 league goals in just 22 games during a season ravaged with injuries. This season our top league scorer is Luis Suarez. He has just 6 league goals in 20 appearances. In his final half season at Anfield Torres struggled. He was playing in a woeful Liverpool team managed by Roy Hodgson. The side did not play to his strengths and he looked entirely disinterested. He had managed just 6 goals in 20 league matches. However, under the returning Kenny Dalglish, Torres played in 3 league matches. He scored against Blackpool, he played well and hit a post in the Merseyside derby against Everton and in his final match for Liverpool he fittingly scored twice against Wolves. 3 goals in 3 games. Extrapolating that over a season is obviously unrealistic but that small sample size is all we have to draw conclusions from and it looks pretty good. The side we're playing a more attacking and attractive brand of football under Dalglish that suited him and Torres repaid his new manager with goals. Then he left. He joined an ageing Chelsea team that played and continue to play a brand of football which negates his abilities. He has had 3 managers at Stamford Bridge in little over a year and has no regular supply of decent service.
In the years where Torres flourished under Benitez, he was the spearhead of a side set up to play to his strengths. Liverpool pressed high up the pitch to try and regain possession in their opponents half and always looked to release their number 9 as quickly as possible to exploit his pace and movement. He had Steven Gerrard playing behind him, constantly supplying him with through passes and Xabi Alonso further back who was capable of finding Torres (or anyone else for that matter) with an inch perfect pass from anywhere on the field. At Chelsea he has a midfield behind him that contains the likes of Ramires, Lampard, Essien, Mikel and Meireles. None of those players specialise in picking out accurate through balls.
The only player at Chelsea who does suit Torres' style of play is Juan Mata and the two have linked well at times. At Old Trafford the recently departed Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas played Mata behind Torres in the second half (effectively playing the 'Gerrard' position). Torres scored one, should have scored 2 more and had a fantastic 45 minutes in terms of his overall play. It was the best I've seen him play since he departed L4 and it was against United, the champions, not some mid table side. Yet for the majority of the season Mata has played in a wide position for Chelsea and therefore this has reduced his ability to link up with Torres effectively. It was utterly perplexing to me why Villas-Boas didn't try and link Mata and Torres more given their matching styles of play.
Torres now looks a completely forlorn figure at Chelsea, often used as a substitute and he needs to depart as soon as he can to salvage what remains of his career. He has now lost his place in the Spanish squad (unthinkable a year ago) and is falling deeper and deeper into a slumber that will become increasingly more difficult to wake from the longer it goes. He turns 28 this month and should now be at the peak of his powers. His age and talent are proof enough that his form can be recaptured but it becomes ever more evident that it will not happen at his current club.
He needs to move this summer or Chelsea need to structure their next side around him which seems unlikely. His options for a move appear limited though. First of all, Chelsea would still demand a sizeable fee for their record signing (probably a minimum of £20m). If you factor in the fact that clubs in the Champions League who could afford the required fee and the player's wages would be unlikely to take such a risk on a player when they already have proven alternatives, it narrows his options further. Maybe Paris St Germain and their wealthy new owners would be willing to take him. They certainly have the funds and their recent courting of David Beckham proves that they badly want a big name 'marquee' signing. The ridiculously wealthy Russian club Anzhi would probably throw more money at Torres' feet than he could dream of but why commit professional suicide by moving to the Russian league simply for riches? Or maybe, just maybe he could rejoin a club in England. A club that would play to his strengths, a club that needs a goal scorer, a club that is striving to reach the Champions League again, a club whose new owners have the financial muscle to wrestle him away from his Stamford Bridge hell, a club where he knows he is comfortable, a club where he became the best striker on the planet once before....
When you take away the emotional departure, the betrayal that Liverpool fans felt when he left, two facts remain. Torres is in his prime years and desperately needs a new club and Liverpool need a proven centre forward to put the ball in the back of the net. Such players are extremely difficult to find. Football is a fickle sport and in the summer when Liverpool look to draw up a list of players to solve their goal scoring deficiencies Fernando Torres might not be far from the top of it.
