Can Benitez Get The Best Out Of Torres?

After coming to Anfield in the summer of 2007, Fernando Torres demonstrated to the Premier League just why Rafael Benitez was so willing to spend over £20 million on him to lead the line up front. The Spaniard, known as El Niño at his beloved Atletico Madrid, had a superb start, scoring in his first home game against Chelsea. Fast forward to the end of the season and he had 24 goals to his name, breaking the record (previously set by Ruud Van Nistelrooy) for the most prolific foreign goal scorer in a debut season in England. This success was followed by even more on the international stage, helping Spain win Euro 2008 and setting them off on their current dominance of the international stage.




Fernando Torres celebrating against Chelsea from his Liverpool days

Now, once again, fast forward to the current day - and the successful days at Liverpool seem a distant dream. A string of injuries, changes of managers and a £50 million move to Chelsea seem to have sadly disrupted the career of a striker who, at his prime, was arguably the most prolific and dangerous striker in the world game.

The surprise sacking of Roberto Di Matteo, just a matter of months after taking Chelsea and Torres to domestic and European success, has led to the appointment of Rafael Benitez, the manager who showed such faith in El Niño and managed him during his most successful spell of his career. So could this be the turning point which takes him back to his old Liverpool days?



Can Rafael Benitez get the best out of Torres again?

Since breaking through the youth ranks into the first team at Atletico Madrid, Fernando Torres has had such a weight on his shoulders. Named as club captain at the tender age of 19, he did superbly there as the main striker, and again at Liverpool - again, as the main striker. Throughout his whole career Fernando has been the main striker to lead the line and a lot of the time him not scoring would result in a defeat or dropped points for his team. He played through injuries during his time at Anfield, using painkillers to keep him going. Three successive summers (2008, 2009 and 2010) without a rest due to international commitments seems to have taken a huge hit on him - and his failure to find the back of the net regularly after his big money move has hit home yet again. Fernando Torres seems to have hit the burnout phase of his career.

The 3 men behind him - Oscar, Hazard and Mata - are extremely special players. These should be perfect to provide Torres, a proven 20-goal-a-season man, the service to hit his heights yet again. Something isn't quick clicking for him, and it's a question of how much Benitez can do to affect this - he knows the man extremely well, and for the sake of a once world class player, I hope Rafa is successful in turning this around. He needs to get Torres' confidence up again, keep him focused on his game and try and nurture his instinct back into his game - either to what it was a few years ago, or to change it to play a newer style and challenge him to push on and prove himself to the doubters, but most importantly himself and Benitez.

We'll see over the course of the season whether Torres can recover from this burnout and over-reliance on him throughout the last 10 years to come good again - or whether Chelsea will need to splash out on a striker (rumoured to be the superb Radomel Falcao) in January. Only time will tell.