Okay, okay – we’re a good few years late jumping on the ‘Fernando Torres isn’t as good as he used to be bandwagon’, but still…
Once one of the most feared strikers on the planet, his form took a sudden nosedive towards the end of his stay with Liverpool and, despite Chelsea still being happy enough to fork out £50m for him a few months later, he never really recovered.
Sure, there’s been the the odd flash of his former self every now and then (there was this the other week, for example) but generally speaking, he’s been playing off a reputation he established for himself a long time ago for a good while now.
All this said, he still seems to start regularly enough for Atletico Madrid, one of the continent’s best sides.
On Wednesday evening he was named in Diego Simeone’s starting XI for the game with Leicester. Already a goal up thanks to Antoine Griezmann’s first half penalty, Torres seemed certain to double the home side’s lead after an hour. Failing that, there was no way he wasn’t going to work the goalkeeper… right?
Making a run between two Leicester defenders, Torres was picked out by a pass from Koke. Having brilliantly engineered enough space to get a shot away with his right foot, Torres… well, Torresed things up…
✅ Through on goal
❌ Goes out for a throw-inTorres keeps @LCFC in the game. 🙈 #ATLLEI https://t.co/wUtKLrye6s
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) April 12, 2017
If we’re being completely fair, he did appear to slip at the crucial moment – not that this was going to stop plenty of those that saw it happen from posting a stream of mean comments about it on Twitter.
Catch up with this week’s episode of 888Sport Football Friday Live
