Fernando Torres believes he is ready and in good form should Carlo Ancelotti choose to play him in Sunday’s big match against Liverpool.
Chelsea’s new signing played 26 games for his old club this season prior to his move and scored four goals in his last seven games, but accepts that after only a handful of training sessions with his new team mates, the manager may prefer to start him on the bench.
‘I feel ready to play and I am fit, but if I have to be on the bench I have no problem,’ Torres said on Friday afternoon.
‘The players gave me a very nice welcome and now I am trying to understand the routine of the team – but I know them, I have played against them so many times and I know the way they play.
‘I think I will be involved in everything very soon and hopefully I can give them extra help to achieve the targets Chelsea have asked for this season.
‘I think the last month or two months I have been playing close to my best,’ the Spanish international declared. ‘I’ve been recovering my form after the first month of the season and after the World Cup.
‘I feel very good now and between now and the rest of the season I will give my best form again. I need to be able to do that to compete for a place in the first 11.’
How Ancelotti chooses to dovetail his available strikers is not concerning Torres who does admit that if he does make it onto the Stamford Bridge pitch on Sunday, it will be a strange experience for him.
‘I can play as one up front, or as two or three up front, it doesn’t matter to me. The way Chelsea play is different from the way Liverpool do but when you have the quality of Chelsea, it doesn’t matter the position you play.
‘I am a big fan of Anelka and Drogba and when we played against Chelsea we were always very worried about all of them, so I am very excited about playing in the same side as them.
‘So it depends on my work if I can play with them but hopefully I can play in the same side. It is enjoyable with these kind of players that everyone wants to play with.
‘It is going to be a strange situation for me,’ he continued. ‘I was training with the Liverpool players one week ago and I have a lot of friends there so of course it is a big motivation for me to play against players like Carragher, Skrtel and Agger and it is a big challenge to start with.’
As well as coming up against former team-mates, Torres is of course fully aware that he will share a stadium on Sunday with a few thousand of his old team’s supporters.
‘I understand that they will be angry,’ he acknowledged.
‘They will not understand my decision but maybe in a few weeks, or maybe not, I will explain to them all the reasons, but I would like to think about the future now.
‘I was an Atletico Madrid fan and when some of the top players left the club I didn’t understand. At the time I couldn’t understand that they are doing the best for themselves, for their families and for their careers – so I am not asking them to understand me, but I am sure with time that they will see what I did there and they will be thinking differently than they are thinking now.
‘I have been in this situation before when I signed for big money. There was big expectation so it is nothing new for me and I was more than ready for the challenge.
‘I am very excited about this new life and this new era that I have in front of me.’
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