In defence of Torres

Fernando Torres has been criticised quite a bit of late. In the aftermath of the Wolves defeat, I've read comments ranging from calling him "shit" and "lazy" to suggesting that he should be sold ASAP because he "lacks heart", that he looked "disinterested", etc. while Jamie Redknapp was quick to lay the blame on our star striker’s performance on SKY Sports.

I’ve checked the stats and they make interesting reading. In his seasons at the club, Torres has scored the following percentages of the entire team’s League goals:
2007-08...36%
2008-09...18%
2009-10...30%
2010-11...24% (to date)

If we were to beat Bolton 2-0 with Torres scoring both, he would have 30% of our goals this season –identical to his ratio from last season. So in spite of his apparent lack of form, after 17 games Torres has every chance of achieving a similar percentage as last season.

What’s even more interesting is the split between goals at home and away. Last season, Torres scored 28% of the team’s League goals at Anfield. This season he has 27%. This would appear to support the view that Torres’ comparatively smaller goal tally is proportionate to a reduction in goals scored by the entire team. In other words, the team is scoring fewer goals but Torres is contributing a similar proportion of the goals that are scored.

Away from home, Torres netted 33% of last season’s goals but has only 17% this campaign. That appears to be a significant drop but the fact we have scored so few goals away from home means that if Torres were to score the team’s next away goal, that percentage would shoot up to 29%.

I understand the frustrations over his seemingly stroppy body language, his inability to hold the ball up, his sloppy passing and overall lack of an obvious contribution. However, I think it is unreasonable to expect him to be scoring more goals when the team is attacking less effectively and collectively scoring fewer goals. It’s not as though he is missing huge numbers of chances. He’s just not getting any.