Like many others, I was devastated upon hearing that Torres wanted out from Anfield. After awhile, it really got me thinking. Are we truly losing a player who is as good as we really think he is? A player who has been instrumental in helping us to win games? A player who as a ‘world class’ striker really troubles defences? You decide for youself.
Fernando Torres’ Shot
As you can see, the stats arent that great eh? I randomly picked those games. Very average indeed, and defintely doesn’t warrant a 50 million price tag.
Fernando Torres’ Passing
Fernando Torres’ Possession Play
The blue dots represents successful tackels, while the red dots represents a lost in possession (aerial challenges, dribbling). Now seriously? He has lost possesion more time than he has gained it, bar Manure. How a ‘world class’ striker, World Cup and European Cup Winner can ‘acheive’ these stats are beyond me. Based on these stats, he has been an absolute liability to the team!
Hopefully this will open the eyes of those who claim ‘we need Torres to stand a chance quialifying for UCL next season’, or ‘selling Torres will be taking a step backwards’. Well, adios Torres! The greatest thing you ever did for us was to land us a 50 million cheque. For that I thank you.
Time to welcome Luis Suarez! Our new Torres, and Andy Carroll! Our new Suarez.
Comments are welcomed. :)
YNWA!
Joseph
While statistically we can whittle down his importance, who has been our most productive, consistantly leading scorer not counting this dismal year, which can be attributed to many other factors? Sure, it’s a way of getting over him leaving, but in the end we just lost our best overall scorer. Obviously I’m really excited, but Suarez and Carroll aren’t proven yet, Torres had proven that when he’s on, he IS the best. Time will tell, and if both Carroll and Suarez live up to their potential, we definitely came out on top. Still doesn’t make it feel any better though.
Hi Michael, thanks for taking time to read my article.
Yes, no doubt we lost our top goalscorer. But thats exactly all he can do nowadays. Score goals. His passing is very average, he doesn’t look that eager to shoot anymore, and when he does it more than not is off target. And apparently he lost that extra yard of pace, technique and skills to beat players. On he’s day he’s unplayable, but its rarely his day it seems.
I was gutted with the news and really angry after seeing his first interview with Chelsea TV, but after seeing these stats I feel like we will manage good without him and Suarez and Carroll will be deadly partnership upfront. Thank you for the above stats b’cos its doesn’t bother me anymore that we have lost Torres. Good Business Liverpool FC. YNWA
Hi Himanshu, thanks for your comment. :)
Wow man great analysis. In retrospect I think Torres only real ‘world class’ ability is his finishing. When he gets the ball with a sight on goal he scores 9/10. But his dribbling, passing, and shooting from distance as you’ve shown are all somewhat lacking. I’m glad we’ve gotten two young, hungry strikers in place of him. I think it’ll start to pay dividends soon enough.
Hi Bryan, thanks for taking time to read my article. :)
While not mourning his passing, to publish stats like these and suggest he’s anything less than a top striker is trying to pull the wool over your own eyes. Don’t wish him luck, but don’t belittle his qualities. Doing that makes you no better than the Mancs
Hi Mark, thanks for taking time to read my article.
Torres is a top striker. But his performances for Liverpool suggest otherwise. He may turn out to be great for Chelsea, but he has been sub-standard playing for us this season.
Torres is indeed a top class striker. He may not have shown his truly talent, but you gotta admit that he broke lots of records since signing at Anfield. His first two seasons he was devastating. He is looking for silverware, and I understand that. He joined Liverpool to win things and when we did not qualify to the Champs League last season, it seemed like he lost his desire to play. It’s a shame though, I think he shouldn’t have left Liverpool now. The future is finally looking bright again, and he could be a part of it. I’m Brazilian, Liverpool supporter and my favourite player is Torres. It is a sad, sad day for me. But I have faith, YNWA
It think we should stop living in the past.,footballers are the most unpredictable people on earth..nando is gone and gone for good and he was a good player..To all liverpool fans worldwide,let us forgive and forget..with or without torres,liverpool fc is still one of the greatest in the world..we’re marching on..and i’m proud to be a liverpool fan…YNWA!!!
Torres is just down right disrespectful saying Chelsea are a club he ‘wants to play for’ and he’s now at the level he’s ‘supposed to be at’ it’s mostly HIS fault if he wasn’t so god damn awful all season perhaps if he could be bothered to score or run or anything we would have got some results and things would be looking different right about now.
Carroll, suarez YNWA!
How can you say all that about Torres and then say that Suarez is our new Torres. Hopefully not after reading your piece!!! LOL
Well analysed! I think this is a blessing in disguise! Torres’s finishing is awesome. But everything that leads to it is either a gerrard or a Kuyt! From what I ve seen of suarez he’s a complete! Moreover 50 mil for a 28 year old player?? Not a good investment! Suarez hopefully will win us trophies and finsh his career here! If he doesn’t then his contract expires when he’ll be 28! Who knws how much he may get us?
Thank you hitesh. Torres is actually 26, 27 in March.
Gone are the days when Torres would fly pass players and score.
Very well covered.
Totally agere, he is not THAT good.
Looking forward to the rest of the season, with the new players.
YNWA
Gunnari
Thank you Gunnari. :)
I applaud the use of the chalkboards but randomly pulling up four games and trying to gleam the worth of Torres is not the best use of the information. I could probably find 4 random games of any player in the world and make the claim that they were rubbish.
Why are you particularly bothered that he lost possession more than he won it? He’s a striker at the tip of a 4321. I’m not expecting him to be winning tackles left, right and centre. I would also expect him to be caught out in tackles more often because his regular job is to get the ball and head for goal.
Your also pulling games from under Hodgson where it was widely accepted that Torres was isolated and forced to deal with long balls. Hardly the optimum situation for his style of play.
The basic facts are that Torres has been a brilliant player for some time. He’s been bad for the last 12-18 months. We got a huge fee and he didn’t want to be here. Replacements should hopefully do the job.
Hi Brad, the fact that he lost so much possession and dont even win it back suggests that he is too lazy to retrieve the ball back. Lack of effort. Furthermore, he’s not much use if he constantly gets the ball, runs for goal just to end up getting dispossesed and not trackback to retrieve it.
As you can see, he was quite rubbish against Fulham as well.
He has only been branded world class ever since joining Liverpool. Being bad for the last 12-18 months would also mean that he performed well or up to expectations for 66% of his time here. Not as impressive as we make it out to be.
Excellent piece:)At first I was as gutted by Fernando leaving as I was that day God went to Leeds.However, I belive we’re better off now and now we can have 11 men playing all the time and not ten and a half
Torres…?Who…?
Thanks Thomas. :)
Bye Torres ;(
Thanx for the analysis. Although still feel gutted but, my opinion all this while starting from early season he purposely didnt play well as he should. Maybe… But, definitely he is one of the most top striker. But his departure really benefited us. His 50mill Tag is the price for him during his year 2009 at LFC and we got that money during his flopie season :) Hope that Suarez n Carrol will be the greatest partner in crime during any LFC matchday!!! And cant hardly wait for our clash with them next super sunday!
No problem Nad. :)
We are all hoping the ‘Suarroll’ partnership will be firing.
wow mate, really good job, congrats
Thanks Diego. :)
I think it was a good move for Torres, he was and is not a bad player or of bad qaulity. He just struggles to find his natural rhytm which will be his demise at the Bridge as the owner does not tollirate poor perfomance. Kenny brought in 2 very good players to replace him which I see as a great move. Torres was never a player to go for a ball and if he lost the ball he would go sit on his behind and just look at the official as if to ask what was that. So in short Torres was great but now he is just good I don’t like Rooney, but think Rooney is much better and consistant with his play same with Anelka and many others. Best wishes for Torres at his new club. Hope he can stay there for the full term of his contract
Yes lowie, and hopefully Suarez and Carroll fulfill their contracts too.
“Time to welcome Luis Suarez! Our new Torres, and Andy Carroll! Our new Suarez”. What exactly do you mean here mate. Anyways great analysis. Torres has been a liability for the last 18 months. I guess injuries, frustrations and personal failures got the best of him.He should be ashamed calling LFC a flop.He was part of LFC.Now we know he made us fail on more than two occasions.What an Idiot!!! Liverpool have lost a STAR NAME and replaced him with two FANTASTIC PERFOMERS!!!!!!
Hi Martin, yes i better explain myself lol. I meant Suarez to be our new Torres in the sense of being our new Hero, star striker, or in your words, a star name that Torres was. And i meant Carroll to be our new Suarez in the sense of being the 2nd top class striker that Suarez was meant to be.
remember if u dnt want 2 play a team and ur heart is nt there wat do people expect frm u?its definitely below par performance all i cn say is that torres wil play his heart 4 chelsea cos he loves chelsea,as 4 suarez he as nt bin in a physical and pacy league b4 lets see who wil b d star performer.CTID…
great read,torres heart hasn’t here for a while and to many injuries.can’t imagine les sulk is to happy either
Thanks Robert. :)
I’d agree with most of Brad’s comments except for the part about Torres underperforming in the last 12 to 18 months. Torres was injured a lot last season, but when he played he was as good as he has ever been. 18 goals in 22 league games is phenomenal whichever way you look at it. And under Dalglish he seemed to have found his scoring boots again – 4 goals in 4 games if you count the one wrongly disallowed against Fulham. It was really only Hodgson with his awful hoofball tactics who failed to get the best out of Torres. At the end of the day, Torres was paid to score goals and on that score no one can argue that he has not delivered for us or that he will not be missed.
Hi Kamal, Torres’ goalscoring record is tremendous. No doubt his goals and presence will be missed, but we’re not that worse off without him.
That’s right. Torres was in great shape during 2007-2009 and last 2 years he was really mediocre. WC-2010 was won totally without him. Our great club don’t need any mediocrity. We should move on. We got two great strikers.
Time will show if Torres plays better in Chelsea.
interesting. where are the charts and pitch-maps from?
Hi Prashant, they are Guardian’s chalkboards.
Forget the stats, if your a Liverpool fan and watched all the games over the last 12 months u would have seen that torress hasn’t been playing good. We got 2 new strikers who want to play for us, who will both fight till the end and I’m sure will have a great partnership. YNWA
thanks Joseph.
@Joseph – I don’t disagree that he wasn’t putting in the same effort but I’d make the claim that Torres has regularly won less tackles than lost the ball throughout his career. It’s part and parcel of being a striker. Apart from the Fulham game he had a pretty good level in the games you displayed.
Passing was better in the Fulham game but as could be gleaned from the diagram, a lot of his passes were in our own half. That suggests that the team on a whole was on the back foot and Torres was getting back to help out. I’d make the claim that a lot of the team’s successful passes throughout this season have come in our own half. It’s when we get into the attacking third that the lack of quality and/or support results in a loss of possession.
Torres has been out of form BUT I strongly believe that a large contributing factor was Hodgson’s tactics. Any striker in that situation would have seen poor performances because they were being asked to drop to deep and then receive inadequate support.
I think that it was for the best that he got out of the club. He wasn’t happy and we got a massive fee. I also think that within a short time he’ll be back to terrorising defences because he’s still got all the attributes that make him great. He justs needs to be a in a good headspace in order to take advantage of them.
Neither Suarez or Carroll are the complete player that Torres can be. Suarez is so far untested in the EPL and I still have concerns over his temperament. Carroll doesn’t have the same ability to go beyond a defense that Torres does but instead excels as a more traditional centre forward/goal poacher.
I’ll also point out that if you pull up the Tottenham game you might see a certain J Terry at the foot of our team line up.:D