Can £50m Striker Torres Recapture His Golden Form?

Andre Villas-Boas found a swift solution to one problem surrounding Fernando Torres - 

whether he is as successful in curing the major difficulty faced by Chelsea's British record signing remains to be seen.

Villas-Boas smiled as he announced an investigation into an interview Torres gave in Spain, which quoted him as making less than flattering remarks about the speed of his older Chelsea team-mates, was over.

The search for the world-class striker that terrorised defenders for Liverpool and Spain goes on and will continue when Chelsea travel to Manchester United in the Premier League on Sunday.

A visit to the champions and Chelsea's main title rivals should be a perfect fit for a £50m striker, but stark statistics tell the tale. Torres has scored once in 23 appearances for Chelsea, a brutal contrast to 81 goals in 142 games at Anfield.

At Liverpool Torres was the player you could almost hear as well as see reducing defenders of the highest quality, to rubble. On one memorable night when he destroyed Real Madrid in Liverpool's 4-0 win at Anfield, one Spanish journalist reacted to another devastating run with the words: "He is like a golden bullet."

So why has Torres misfired so far at Chelsea - and can the 27-year-old ever recapture the menace and pace that elevated him to one of the world's great strikers two years ago

So why has Torres misfired so far at Chelsea - and can the 27-year-old ever recapture the menace and pace that elevated him to one of the world's great strikers two years ago?

Former Chelsea and Scotland winger Pat Nevin has never wavered in his belief that Torres simply needs the medicine of goals to cure his ills - while former Liverpool defender and Match of the Day pundit Alan Hansen expresses concerns about whether the Torres of old will ever return.

Nevin said: "Fernando Torres doesn't look like he's got anything wrong with him that a couple of goals wouldn't solve. His movement was good against Bayer and he almost scored a phenomenal goal in the first minute.

"What I also thought was a good sign was the way he set up the second goal for Juan Mata. It showed he is a team player. He is desperate for a goal but that desire to score is not forcing him into making bad decisions. He worked out the percentages, which were that he probably had a 35% chance of scoring and Mata had a 95% chance of scoring, and reached the correct conclusion."

Torres, because of the money spent and the lingering feeling that he was more vanity purchase by Roman Abramovich rather than part of a considered plan, will be central to the narrative of Chelsea's season. Villas-Boas will hope it has a happy ending.

Nevin added: "Chelsea won 2-0 because Torres did that and that is what people have to understand. He knew to try and score himself was the wrong thing for a good striker to do, so he did the right thing and I happen to think he is doing lots of right things