LONDON: Fernando Torres suffered a dismal debut as Chelsea’s £50mil striker was substituted following a lacklustre display in his new side’s 1-0 defeat against his former club Liverpool yesterday.
Torres was hauled off after just 66 minutes of his first Chelsea appearance and the Spain striker had even more reason to forget his Stamford Bridge bow when Liverpool’s Raul Meireles bagged the winner for his old team just moments after his premature exit.
Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish won the tactical battle with his Chelsea counterpart Carlo Ancelotti and defeat leaves the Blues, who are 10 points behind leaders Manchester United, with virtually no chance of retaining the Premier League title.
Dalglish’s side are now just six points behind Chelsea and it is not impossible that Torres could see his former team beat his new club to a place in the Champions League.
Maxi Rodriguez’s wayward pass gave Torres a clear sight of goal from the edge of the area but his hurried shot sailed high over the bar.
After playing a 4-3-3 formation for much of the season, Ancelotti tinkered with his tactics to accommodate Torres and opted to play the Spaniard alongside Didier Drogba, with Nicolas Anelka tucked in behind the front two.
However, with Liverpool playing three centre-backs, there was little room for Torres to influence the game and he was crowded out whenever the ball came his way.
Torres briefly escaped his shackles with a clever run onto Drogba’s pass, only for Jamie Carragher to snuff out the danger with a superb sliding block.
After sitting back for long periods, Liverpool should have taken the lead when Steven Gerrard’s low cross found Maxi Rodriguez unmarked at the far post.
The Argentine midfielder looked certain to score yet somehow managed an astonishing miss as he scooped his close-range effort onto the bar.
When Gerrard whipped over a low cross in the 69th minute, Cech and Ivanovic left the task of clearing to each other and Meireles punished their confusion by steering the loose ball into the net from close-range.
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