Chelsea's Fernando Torres: Why El Nino Still Hasn't Scored For The Blues

It could've been a scriptwriter's dream at Stamford Bridge on Sunday as Chelsea took on Manchester City, with new £50 million striker, Fernando Torres, having the perfect chance on his birthday to get his first ever goal for his new team. 

However, it did not happen, even though the match still turned out to be a headline-writer's dream, with the boys from Brazil, £17 million World Cup sensation Ramires and £21.2 million fan favourite David Luiz, grabbing the goals to take away the Premier League blues for Chelsea and give the West London club a deserved 2-0 win.

Whilst the Brazilian boys are showing their worth as excellent pieces of business, especially in this economic football climate, where Andy Carroll gets sold for £35 million, the man they call El Niño is proving quite the opposite. 

World Cup winner and Spain striker, Fernando Torres, has yet to score for Chelsea in the seven games he's played for the club, despite the fact his manager Carlo Ancelotti deems him more worthy of a starting place than Didier Drogba (the Premier League's all-time highest active goalscorer). 

Torres is the most expensive Spanish footballer ever, the most expensive footballer to ever play in Britain, and the fourth most expensive player of all-time.

Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, by now, undoubtedly would've expected some return from such a colossal investment, especially considering centre back Luiz already has two goals in five games for the club. 

So why has Fernando Torres not scored for Chelsea yet?

First of all, his main problem is he's not getting enough service through the middle. Chelsea like to play out on the wings, while through the middle they get better results when a midfielder like Frank Lampard runs beyond the striker, as it makes their attack unpredictable and is the easiest way of breaking down a tight defence. 

Therefore, Torres has to drop deeper when he wants the ball, meaning he either has to go for long shots, play the ball to the onrushing midfielder or play it out wide, with the latter being much the preferred option from his teammates and coaches. 

So, unlike a Javier Hernandez for Manchester United, the Spaniard isn't going to get played through on goal to tuck away simple chances like he was at Liverpool, where he had so much success.

Secondly, from set pieces, Ancelotti sets up his Chelsea team to have tall, imposing defenders like Luiz, John Terry and Branislav Ivanovic rushing in at pace to pressurise opponents before they've had a chance to get prepared to defend the corner or free kick (hence why Luiz scored against City), with midfielders like Lampard, Ramires or Michael Essien waiting on the edge of the penalty area to blast the ball home.

The emphasis is much more on this than getting a centre forward to nod the ball in, meaning that from set pieces Torres isn't going to find much joy as his main job is to just cause a nuisance, unlike at Liverpool where it's all about making sure the striker gets his head on it.

Thirdly, Chelsea play with more width than Liverpool did while Torres was at Anfield, meaning most of the time Torres is not a prime target but rather just another option in the penalty area.

The Blues prefer to use the likes of Florent Malouda and Ashley Cole inter-linking with one cutting inside and making runs into the box to either shoot or pass, hence why Malouda for example has scored 10 goals this season.

So it's clear to see why Fernando Torres hasn't scored for the West Londoners yet, when Carlo Ancelotti sets up his team to make sure they don't have to rely on a striker and can score goals from all over the pitch.

At Liverpool, the striker was designed to be the main source of goals, hence why Torres scored an impressive 81 goals in total for the Reds, but also why Liverpool have slumped to the lows they have these past two seasons.

But it's not just Carlo Ancelotti's tactics which have helped deny the Spaniard opening his Chelsea goalscoring account.

Torres himself has been visibly lacking in self-efficacy, i.e. the belief that he will score when presented with a chance, since he joined the Blues in such an historic transfer.

It's evident every time he gets a chance through on goal. Unlike at Liverpool where in such situations he'd move smoothly and decisively to slot the ball past the goalkeeper in such an easy and aesthetically pleasing way, at Chelsea it's a different story.

The striker looks far less decisive, often shuffling his feet and spending more time looking at the ball as opposed to where he aims to put it, before he either gets tackled or the keeper rushes out to claim the ball.

A prime example against City would be a chance at around the hour mark, where he was played though behind the Man City defence and had a golden goalscoring chance, had he instinctively hit it and not thought about his placement of the ball, which allowed Joleon Lescott the chance to sweep the ball from his feet and out for a corner.

This could perhaps be down to the pressure Torres may feel from the transfer, considering £50 million is the most Chelsea have ever spent on a player, is much more than the player himself could ever have in his bank account, and is much much more than he could've ever dreamed he'd one day be worth. 

It's quite likely such a price tag does affect him on the pitch. It could easily be the case that when he is presented with a chance on goal, he thinks to himself, "I have to score this, I need to score this. I don't want to be £50 million worth of nothing", hence distracting him from thinking where he's going to place the ball, and thus meaning he misses yet another chance. 

After all, the longer he goes without scoring, the longer he'll read and hear bad press about himself in the newspapers, on the Internet, on the radio and on TV. Also, not to mention his teammates will get on his back after a while (nobody more so than Didier Drogba), as will the fans and probably even some of his own family and friends.

So with such pressure on poor El Niño, one can see why he hasn't got off the mark yet.

Time will tell as to how long Fernando Torres has to wait, but unless the striker gets a greater role in the team and he's able to lift the pressure off himself, it's unlikely that he will truly blossom into a Spanish sensation on Fulham Broadway.

Follow Yoosof Farah on Twitter @TheSportsJourno