By Chris Wright
On paper, Fernando Torres’ time at Chelsea doesn’t look too shabby with a not-entirely-shambolic goal record of 46 in 172 appearances and an FA Cup, a Europa League and a Champions League title to show for his four years at Stamford Bridge.
The truth, however, is that Torres looked and played like a lost soul for the majority of the time, a pouting vagrant £50million spectre doomed to huff and puff up and down the channels while struggling to work out whether he was a real boy or a figment of his own imagination.
In fact, fairly often it looked like he was actually two one-legged players sewn together.
Now back at Atletico Madrid, things slowly seem to be turning around for Torres, now 30 and playing with a smile on his face for the first time in yonks – though it’s fair to say that some Atleti fans harboured lingering doubts about the return of the prodigal son when he signed from Milan in January.
However, it seems that our Fernando has become philosophical in his old age, and chose poetic terms to address his bittersweet Chelsea tenure in a chat with Spanish paper El Pais.
“The doubts (of Atletico fans) were understandable because people did not see the English league, or the short time I was at Milan,” said Torres.
“They read the statistics, and they were not always the same.
“You end up in a situation where things have not gone well for weeks, or for years. It was like swimming in wet clothes.”
Yep, that’s exactly what it looked like too.
Anyone who got their Pool Frog 1 swimming award at junior school can surely sympathise with such a stirring a metaphor.
“I know how I am, and I am good,” he sadded (typo, but it stays in).
“In the end these doubts disappear, but then others come again.”
Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt thou the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I Nando.