£50m Torres "played a stinker!"

Steven Howard is the first to condemn Torres for his debut against Liverpool. He did not hide his feelings at all. Look at what he said concerning the match: “As debuts go, it was a stinker. Chelsea have had some celebrated players in the No 9 shirt – Peter Osgood, Kerry Dixon, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Luca Vialli.

“The closest £50million Torres got to any of them yesterday afternoon was when he sliced an early shot way over the bar at the Shed End and saw it rebound off the ‘Born Is The King’ banner celebrating the legendary Ossie. It was also an all-round stinker of a performance from Chelsea.

“They thought they had turned the corner with three consecutive wins and 18 goals in five games. The talk once more was about reining in Manchester United and Arsenal at the top. In sensational events 24 hours earlier, United had been beaten for the first time this season by bottom club Wolves, while Arsenal had somehow contrived to surrender a 4-0 lead at Newcastle. Suddenly the door had been opened… only for Chelsea to have it slammed firmly in their faces.”

As if that was not enough, Matt Barlow came up with his own side of the story: “Fernando Torres suffered a debut from hell on Sunday. The £50million record signing was substituted after 66 minutes as Chelsea were beaten 1-0 at home by his former club Liverpool. Torres made no impact as Kenny Dalglish’s three-man defence smothered Chelsea’s £90m strikeforce and Raul Meireles volleyed home the only goal of the game in the 69th minute.”

Torres never had a good day on his debut but the future is bright. He’s a good player if not one of the best players on the planet right now and he will show it pretty soon.