was far away from the person I wanted to be."

Mata's comment about "the value of money" is also interesting. There was no doubt that when Torres first moved to Liverpool, in 2007, he quickly understood the relationship between the club, the city and its fans; as a former Atletico Madrid player, Liverpool's working-class roots appealed to him.

"Playing for a team of the people is something that pleases me," he once told Canal Plus. "I wanted to contribute to a town trying to rebuild its image."

Chelsea, on the other hand, is a club hardly renowned for respecting "the value of money:" it is, after all, currently paying the salaries of three coaches, two of whom (Andre Villas-Boas and Roberto di Matteo) have been sacked this year.

That does not explainwhy Torres has struggled so much in what is nearly two years at the club (the two-year anniversary, unlikely to be celebrated, is six weeks away). One reason, though, became apparent Saturday when he scored twice in a 3-1 win at Sunderland, making it four in a week after a brace in the 6-1 Champions League win over FC Nordsjaelland. After volleying home Eden Hazard's cross to give Chelsea the lead, Torres doubled his tally by scoring from a penalty early in the second half.

It was not only his first penalty for Chelsea, but his first in English football. He took penalties for Atletico, scoring 18 out of 26, but when he missed one for Liverpool in a preseason shootout against Portsmouth in July 2007, he was never