Rafael Benitez: Fernando Torres is amazing... at clearing the ball

Chelsea manager pin-points a less appreciated side of the misfiring striker's game

As he contemplated Chelsea’s situation in the last chance saloon of the Champions League group stages, Rafa Benitez was asked to identify one improvement that he had noticed in the game of the Fernando Torres, since he took over the club 14 days ago.

Rescuing the form of the £50m striker who has scored two goals in his last 12 starts was never going to be a simple task, and Benitez has little alternative but to select him as the only fit, experienced forward at his disposal. He said he had not seen Gary Neville’s dissection of Torres’ shrinking confidence on Sky Sports on Monday, but nevertheless the Chelsea interim first-team coach could offer one shred of consolation.

 “It’s not just scoring goals [with Torres], so I will say something,” Benitez said. “We changed his position in corners, for example. I don’t know if Gary Neville had this opportunity, but if you analyse the corners against, he was amazing. Two or three times he’s cleared the ball and afterwards was just doing man to man because it’s what he had to do.

 “He’s a big lad, good in the air, so okay, man to man. He’s a striker so we’ve put him in front and he was really good.”

In the case of Torres, any signs of improvement are to be welcomed, but when he arrived from Liverpool 23 months ago for a transfer fee that was a British record, it was not his prowess at defending corners that Roman Abramovich had in mind. Didier Drogba was a master of the clearing header when Chelsea were defending headers, but he put a few away at the other end too.

With every game that goes by, the Torres situation is becoming increasingly difficult for the club to put a gloss on and with their Champions League future hanging by a thread they need a goal and a victory more than ever. Shakhtar will have to beat Juventus in Donetsk for Chelsea to have a chance of surviving in the competition, but first Benitez’s team will have to beat the Danish champions, Nordsjaelland, at home.

Torres is, Benitez said, scoring goals aplenty in training and there is little doubt that he will asked to lead the line again. Asked whether, as Neville suggested was possible, Torres’ team-mates lacked the confidence in the striker to trust him with the ball, Benitez said that he still believed the player would come good for Chelsea.

He said: “I didn’t watch the analysis, but Fernando is a great player and his team-mates know he’s a great player. If he’s in the right position, they will play with him. If he’s in the wrong positions, maybe not. But I can make 200 analyses from here, watching the telly, and I’ll be right.

 “It doesn’t matter what I say. I can find clips you can use in one way or the other way. The main thing is what you can see as a manager on the pitch and in the training sessions, and Fernando is doing a great job. [On Monday] we had a training session with finishing [practice] and Fernando scored a lot of goals.

 “I think he has more confidence and his team-mates know that he’s trying very hard and that is the main thing for me.”

Torres gave a rare interview to the Fifa website, ahead of Chelsea’s participation in the Fifa Club World Cup, in which he repeated that he had come to Chelsea to win trophies and was happy there. “In my first full season, we won the FA Cup and Champions League. What more can you ask? We have a chance now to win the Fifa Club World Cup.

 “I have four more years on my contract so hopefully I can win many more things - the Premier League would be amazing. The Capital One Cup and the Community Shield also.” Unfortunately for his manager the Capital One Cup will not be enough for Abramovich if Chelsea’s league form continues in its current vein. As for winning the Community Shield, quite frankly, is he joking?

Benitez has proved the master of navigating the Champions League in the past but he resisted comparisons between the Nordsjaelland game and the final group game of the victorious 2004-2005 campaign when his Liverpool side beat Olympiakos by the requisite two clear goals to qualify. Chelsea’s destiny is not in their own hands, and they must keep an eye on events in Donetsk where Group E’s final placings will be decided.

Benitez reminded Shakhtar’s players that tonight was also an opportunity for them to shine “They have good players, players who want to be seen around the world. It’s important for them, a challenge. Everyone will be watching their game carefully so they know they have to perform.” He stopped short of saying this was their chance to get a move away from Shakhtar, in spite of the lucrative wages available there, but the hint was there.

There will be no returns from among his injured players. Frank Lampard has only been training with the squad for two sessions and Daniel Sturridge and John Terry are even further away from playing first team football and unlikely to be back for the trip to Sunderland on Saturday. As it has been for all but two games of the season, it will be down to Torres in attack tonight.

At Liverpool, Torres was a very different kind of animal. “[Steven] Gerrard and [Xabi] Alonso could pass the ball quick and Fernando, who people didn’t really know, could benefit because he was so quick,” Benitez said. “Now people know his game and are ready for him. But he will score goals and his confidence will go high.” As ever, he hopes that will start tonight.

Independent Comment
blog comments powered by Disqus
Caption competition
Caption competition
News in pictures
World news in pictures
Sport blogs

New day (slowly) rising – As Brasileirão gets underway, Brazilian football stumbles, rather than leaps into the future

The average Serie A crowd last year was 13,000 - comparable to Australia’s A-League.

by James Young

iBet: Mercedes and Hamilton to roar in Monaco

Monaco is a street circuit where driver ability is more important than anywhere else and if we take ...

by Gareth Purnell

On The Road at the Giro d’Italia: It sounds sadistic, but the team live for the mountain stages

Three weeks ago as I drove off the Eurostar, I remember thinking what a very long time it was until ...

by Martin Ayres

       
Andrew Mitchell: 'It's no good feeling hard done by'

Andrew Mitchell: 'It's no good feeling hard done by'

In his first interview since 'plebgate', the former Chief Whip opens up just enough to concede that, in politics, you have to take the rough with the smooth
Corruption and the FCO: Blue skies, white sands, dark clouds

Corruption and the FCO: Blue skies, white sands, dark clouds

Special report: Met police call for criminal inquiry into former diplomat's Cayman Islands rule
Fallen angel: Winona Ryder on bouncing back from her decade in the wilderness

Fallen angel: Winona Ryder bounces back

She owned the 1990s... but then she disappeared. Now, Ms Ryder is back with quite the bang in her latest role, as the wife of a notorious real-life Mob hitman.
Roman Polanski shakes Cannes Film Festival

Roman Polanski shakes Cannes Film Festival

The director's new film, 'Venus in Fur', is one of the raciest on offer
Rev Richard Coles: 'I don’t have any concerns that God is cross with me for being gay and eventually the Church won’t either'

Rev Richard Coles on the Church and homosexuality

The mellifluous, erudite and witty Coles is the nation's most pop-culture-friendly priest
'Baghdad likes to live from crisis to crisis': Civil war looms in Iraq

Patrick Cockburn: Civil war looms in Iraq

The governor of Kirkuk - one of the country's most violent but successful provinces - fears the worst
Written on the body: Tattooists at pains to point out their artistic credentials

Written on the body

Tattooists at pains to point out their artistic credentials
Conquering Everest: 60 facts about the world's tallest mountain

Conquering Everest: 60 facts about the world's tallest mountain

The IoS marks the sixtieth anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first reaching the peak of the highest mountain on Earth
A new, and irreversible, Dust Bowl looms

Rupert Cornwell: A new, and irreversible, Dust Bowl looms

The destructive power of tornadoes will be as nothing once the Great Plains' vast underground water reserve dries up
Every creature's needless death diminshes us all

Philip Hoare: Every creature's needless death diminishes us all

A 60 per cent decline in our national species should alarm us, yet few of us act. But to mind more about animals would reflect well on society
Killing with kindness: Burma's religious battleground - and the monks at the heart of it

Killing with kindness: Burma's religious battleground

Six years ago, the world cheered the monks behind Burma’s Saffron Revolution. Now, a horrific new eruption of religious slaughter is being blamed on a 'Buddhist Bin Laden'.
Let's take it outside: Bill Granger's Bank Holiday feast

Let's take it outside: Bill Granger's Bank Holiday feast

You can’t always depend on the weather – but you can avoid the pitfalls of the British barbecue by preparing an elaborate outdoor feast indoors ahead of time...
The Calvin report: Stirring Champions League final shows how far English game must advance

The Calvin report

Stirring Champions League final shows how far English game must advance
10 big questions for the British & Irish Lions to answer

10 big questions for the British & Irish Lions to answer

Warren Gatland's squad fly Down Under aiming to do justice to the expectations – and hoping the Wallabies stay in the pub
The Last Word: Golf must end the hypocrisy before its halo slips totally

The Last Word

Golf must end the hypocrisy before its halo slips totally