After signing from Liverpool for a record £50m fee on transfer deadline day in January 2011, Fernando Torres is still giving his Chelsea employees a huge headache and the Chelsea faithful an even bigger one.
Since 2011, Chelsea have had Carlo Ancelotti, André Villas-Boas, Roberto Di Matteo, Rafael Benitez and José Mourinho at the helm, each failing to get the Spaniard to perform at a consistently high level.
Whilst the Chelsea faithful have admired Torres’ work rate, they have been left increasingly frustrated about his goal return.
Last season, he made 41 appearances for the Blues, finding the back of the net only 11 times. In the top tier of football, that is just not good enough for a centre-forward.
Where did it all go wrong for the once-prolific striker? I don’t think you can even begin to answer that question.
It is nothing to do with Chelsea’s style. Since Didier Drogba left the club back in 2012, Chelsea have tried to build their attack around Torres, purchasing talented young players such as Eden Hazard and Oscar Do Santos, creatives with the panache to create goal scoring opportunities for Torres.
However, with Torres constantly misfiring, Hazard and Oscar went from being the creators to the goal scorers, notching a tally of 28 goals between then last season.
You cannot blame the managers either, Chelsea’s managerial door has swung five times since Torres signed for the club, each manager bringing in new ideas, new philosophies and new tactics.
Not once has Torres consistently performed. Not even the return of the ‘Special One’ has sparked Fernando into action.
You cannot blame the fans in any of this, even after horror misses and dreadful performances, the fans have still sung his name, the Chelsea faithful have gone above and beyond everything expected of supporters when it comes to Torres.
However, this season I sense a change in that support as the fans’ increasing frustrations appear to have reached boiling point.
Is Torres himself to blame? Maybe partly but again, his work rate would be contradictory to that claim, he puts in the hard work, he is trying to improve… But its just not happening for him… Maybe he is just unlucky.
What is clear four seasons on is this: ‘El Nino’ is not just stuck in a bad patch of form, it is clear that he is not a sleeping dragon.
It is clear that Torres, for whatever reason, is not going to be the prolific striker he was at Liverpool.
This has left Chelsea stuck with a player that either nobody wants nor is willing to pay the sums Chelsea would look to recoup.
It seems the only way that Torres will leave the club is if Chelsea run his contract down and let him go for free at the end of the 2015/16 season.
Until then, I feel he will become one of Chelsea’s forgotten men, withdrawn to the bench to hide in the shadows of Chelsea’s latest front-line acquisitions, Diego Costa and Didier Drogba.
You cannot solve a problem like Torres, you just have to accept the reality of the situation, cut your losses and then move on.
Blog by Chelsky Boy Luke