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Chelsea Football Club is delighted to announce the signing of Fernando Torres on a five-and-a-half year contract.
The move to bring the Spanish World Cup and European Championship winner to London from Liverpool for an undisclosed fee was completed on Monday evening. He will be available to play against Liverpool on Sunday.
Speaking at Stamford Bridge after finalising the move, Torres said: 'I am very happy with my transfer to Chelsea and I am looking forward very much to helping my new team-mates this season and for many years to come.
'Having played against Chelsea many times since coming to England, and in some very big games I will never forget, I know there are many great players here and I will work hard to win a place in the team. I hope I can score some important goals for the supporters to enjoy this season.'
Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck said: 'This is a very significant day for Chelsea, capturing one of the best players in the world with his peak years ahead of him. We have long admired the talents of a player who is a proven goalscorer in English football and Fernando's arrival is a sign of our continuing high ambitions. I hope every Chelsea fan is as excited as I am with this news.'
Chief executive Ron Gourlay added: 'Signing a player of the stature of Fernando Torres benefits the club on many levels. Carlo Ancelotti was keen to add his talents to the squad as we continue our quest for three trophies this season, we are delighted we have succeeded with that wish, and this signing will undoubtedly aid the club in realising our worldwide potential - on and off the pitch.'
Torres's scoring pedigree in English football is without doubt. The 26-year-old netted 65 goals in 102 league appearances for Liverpool and 81 in 142 games in all competitions.
He moved to the Premier League aged 23 having spent the previous 12 years at Atletico Madrid, a club based a few miles from the town of his birth on the outskirts of the capital city.
In his time at Atletico, 'El Nino' (The Kid - his nickname in Spain) was the club's youngest player and youngest captain. His debut came aged 17 and he took the armband two years later.
His first full season was a quiet start with just six goals from 36 league appearances but that became 13 from 29 games the next year and the 20-goal mark was reached in 2003/04, Torres's most prolific season in Spain and the year of his debut for the national side.
The player's subsequent emergence on the international stage and 75 goals in 174 Spanish top-flight games meant many clubs across Europe were after his signature but he chose to work under compatriot Rafael Benitez at Liverpool.
The transfer in July 2007 was valued at approximately £20 million, Luis Garcia going the other way, and Torres's first goal for the Merseysiders was against Chelsea at Anfield, opening the scoring in a 1-1 draw after getting the better of Tal Ben-Haim. It was the first of seven goals in seven games against Chelsea. It is his best return against any English club.
He scored three hat-tricks on the way to 33 goals in his first season in England, becoming the first Liverpool player since a previous wearer of the number 9 shirt, Robbie Fowler, to break the 30-goal mark in one season.
His second season returned 17 goals (injury reducing his number of appearances) as his side finished second, three points and one place above Chelsea in the league table. Last season, despite Liverpool dropping down the table to seventh, Torres accumulated a very healthy 22 goals in 32 games.
He headed to the World Cup in South Africa already a winner of the European Championships at senior international level.
In his teenage years, Torres had achieved top-scorer status for his country in both the Under 16 and Under 19 European Championships and he scored his first goal for the senior side against Italy aged 20, seven months after his first cap.
In the 2006 World Cup in Germany he scored three times in the group stage but Spain were beaten by France in the first knockout round. However there was no stopping his nation two years later at Euro 2008, Torres scoring once on the way to the final and the only goal in that match in Vienna as Germany were defeated. It was Spain's first major piece of silverware since 1964.
Last summer in South Africa, Torres struggled for full fitness and form during the World Cup having undergone surgery in April. As a result, Barcelona's Pedro took his place for a semi-final triumph over Germany.
Coach Vicente Del Bosque also left Torres out of the starting line-up for the final. Instead he came on in extra-time in the 1-0 win over Holland although he tore a muscle before the end.
Back in England this season and before joining the Blues, Torres made 26 appearances for Liverpool, scoring 11 times including both goals in Chelsea's November defeat at Anfield.
From CleaseaFC.com
Fernando Torres fears he's running out of time at Liverpool
0 Comments Published by Blogger on Monday, January 31, 2011 at 11:10 AM.
So how long was Fernando Torres to wait, then? He has given Liverpool a raw deal for the best part of a year now and this does him no credit. Yet look at the seemingly inevitable transfer request from his point of view. He is 26. The ensuing four years could be as good as it gets for him. Can he really afford to gamble on Liverpool's next roll of the dice coming up aces?
The restoration of Kenny Dalglish? It is meaningless to Torres right now. Dalglish might be an excellent influence, but Liverpool's hierarchy cannot even guarantee that he will be manager beyond May because they are yet to back him with a permanent role.
We all think he will get the job and most hope so. He seems the right fit.Yet the initial intention of New England Sports Ventures was to appoint a younger man, long term, and there has so far been no announcement to the contrary. Torres is currently being asked to throw in his lot with a caretaker. Liverpool are not yet a stable club.
Back firing: Fernando Torres returned to form against Chelsea in November, but this column (below right) asked why
True, neither are Chelsea. Carlo Ancelotti's future is far from settled if he fails to deliver one of the biggest prizes this season. Yet Chelsea do have visible and finite prospects; not least a last-16 Champions League place and a favourable draw against FC Copenhagen.
These are the sort of possibilities Torres saw for Liverpool when he signed his contract in May 2009. He thought they were a club that would be in contention for the domestic title and the Champions League; instead, from that moment, the place headed steadily downhill.
A graph drawn from that date would show Liverpool bouncing around between 11th and third in the early weeks of last season, before flat-lining around the Europa League positions from roughly the 10th match onwards. This season's figures are worse. Liverpool near the bottom and then suspended in mid-table mediocrity. Their present league position is the highest of the campaign: seventh again.
This was not the brochure, as advertised. Torres signed after a season in which Liverpool finished second to Manchester United by four points and at last showed championship potential under Rafael Benitez. By the end of that summer, however, their great midfield provider, Xabi Alonso, had been sold to Real Madrid and the relationship with Benitez began to sour as results slumped.
We now know the striker was angling to leave for Chelsea before this season began. He became a lethargic, sulking shadow of commitment under Roy Hodgson - except for one game against his present suitors and we understand the reason for that now - and the fancy that he would be inspired by the arrival of Liverpool hero Dalglish turned out to be just that.
As Alan Shearer discovered during his brief tenure at Newcastle United, local heroes do not count for much these days when most of the dressing room hold a foreign passport.
Dalglish's return was a feel-good tale for the romantics at Anfield but the belief that Torres was among them has not lasted.
As a professional, he will only indulge that side of his nature for so long. Suggs from Madness wrote an FA Cup final song for Chelsea in 1997 called Blue Day. 'We've waited so long but we'll wait for ever,' it goes. That is the difference between fans and footballers. Fans can wait for ever, and do. Footballers, the best ones certainly, have a biological clock that starts ticking with an imperative to win trophies in the late twenties.
Having dedicated his young life to a labour of love, Atletico Madrid, and then been equally moved by Liverpool's story, Torres is now looking after No 1.
He has not behaved well, there is no doubt of that. His performances this season have been indolent, and the timing of this episode - on the day the £23m signing of Luis Suarez was announced, at the end of the transfer window when there is precious little time for a club to respond to the loss of a major player, and with the match against Chelsea 10 days away - is crass.
Yet the cynicism of those who presume this means the last four seasons have been an act is overplayed. It was two years ago that Torres was interviewed in these pages. Some of his words are now being recycled to prove a charge of hypocrisy.
Torres talked of Liverpool in emotive terms, saying he had watched DVDs and read books about the history of the club with his girlfriend in their Merseyside apartment. He said Liverpool was now his English club, the way Atletico will remain his Spanish club. 'I would not like to play for another in England or Spain,' he said.
This is damning stuff, in the present circumstances. Yet I have no doubt he meant it. He did see Liverpool as a cause, much like Atletico, he did appreciate its uniqueness. The club lost its way long before Torres did. Another observation from that day is not being so widely circulated, perhaps because it does not support the party line of Torres as rotten turncoat.
'A player wants to be remembered for what he has won, for the medals, for what he has given his club,' Torres said. 'Imagine 10 years after you stop playing, you go back, you look around, you are not in any picture, you have no medals, no trophies; it is like you played for nothing.'
He was speaking in support of Kaka's decision to reject Manchester City, but this could be the epitaph for his Liverpool career, too. Torres has won nothing since joining the club.
The only competition left for him this season is the moribund Europa League and if Dalglish could ensure Liverpool qualify for that competition next season, too, he would be considered to have done a very good job.
For Torres, it is not enough. He sees his stage as the Champions League, not its scrawny cousin, and how long until Liverpool are part of Europe's elite again?
Much is being made of the recent back-to-back wins under Dalglish but while Wolverhampton Wanderers were despatched efficiently enough, Fulham were only overcome by a John Pantsil own goal at Anfield.
Is this any more significant than the run between October 24 and November 7 this season, when Liverpool recorded straight wins over Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Napoli and Chelsea? It is flimsy evidence on which to base such a weighty decision.
Dream partnership: Idealists would like to see Dalglish and Torres working together
So now the propaganda war begins. The Holy Grail for every selling club these days is the cash and a crucifixion. They want to be able to take the money but to do so from a position of moral superiority in which the player alone is blamed (think of Wayne Rooney's departure from Everton, or every outgoing transfer from Arsenal, and you get the idea).
So now we hear that Torres was an unpopular team member with an inflated salary, his own physiotherapist and even had an operation tailored to suit his World Cup commitments. Imagine that?
Imagine a player so self-obsessed that he prioritises winning the World Cup over the kudos of emerging victorious from the bitter fight for seventh place? Had Liverpool been challenging for the title, one assumes he might have felt differently.
Down-hearted: Torres has cut a lonely figure at Anfield this season
Idealists - and not just Liverpool fans - would like to see Dalglish and Torres together for longer. The manager is a wonderful tutor for any striker. Ask Shearer. He credits Dalglish with a tip that changed his career at Blackburn.
Dalglish noticed in training that his new signing was having a lot of his shots blocked. So he told him to shape to shoot, but delay striking the ball for a split second. That way, said Dalglish, the defender would stretch out a leg to make the stop, leaving a gap through which the ball could be hit. In turn, the goalkeeper would then see the shot late, making it harder to adjust his position to save.
Shearer admitted it was a difficult skill to master but, once achieved, he never looked back. One cannot help but think that in their short time together Torres has not yet taken all Dalglish has to give.
Yet even if Dalglish can improve Torres's game, can he transform Liverpool's before another season passes unfulfilled? It is unlikely and that is the crux of the matter. In a season in which Cesc Fabregas, Rooney and Carlos Tevez have all tried the patience of their clubs, Torres may be the odd man out in actually forcing a move.
Arsenal, Manchester United and Manchester City all persuaded their players to stay by convincing them that better times were around the corner. Chelsea did the same with John Terry two summers ago.
If Liverpool sell Torres, therefore, it means that the management do not think this is a problem that can be resolved. In their minds, the Torres transfer issue will resurface next summer or next season, as a constant distraction. This means they, too, have doubts that they can keep the player happy, short-term.
So Torres's view, and the executive view, of Liverpool are not all that different. He does not know how long he will have to wait to return to the elite and neither do they. If they did, they wouldn't sell.
from dailymail.co.uk
