Fernando Torres has been under huge scrutiny since he changes the red shirt of Liverpool for the blue of Chelsea in that big money move last January as the Victor Chandler Review shows, but if you are the Chelsea manager, you need to back him 100%.

Of course you can say that Torres earns enough money and shouldn’t be treated any different to anyone else in the team. If he is not doing his job, which is scoring goals, then he doesn’t deserve to play. And after a year of football you could say that he has had more than enough chances to earn his place.

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However, anyone in football who understands strikers knows that the only way a striker is going to stop his drought is by being given the confidence of his manager and being out there on the pitch. That’s why it was very disappointing to see Andres Villas Boas sub Torres at the weekend in the 0-0 draw at Norwich. Needing a goal to win the game, Boas gave up on the striker and let the public see that through the substitution. Torres knows he should have scored one of his chances but that makes the substitution that little bit more embarrassing for him and frustrating, as he would have known that another chance might have just fallen his way which could have changes his whole season around.

Villas Boas did something similar in the first half of the season. I can remember Torres scored a couple of goals and started to look sharp and more confident before Boas dropped him for the Manchester United game and left him on the bench for the following three games. Strikers need consistency, and after working hard to raise his game on perhaps on the verge of getting back to his best, Boas zapped all that out of Torres where he has had to start again to get to that point where he was.

Didier Drogba is away at the moment at the African Cup of Nations, and this is a perfect opportunity for Torres to put his stamp on the team while Drogba isn’t breathing down his neck.

At the moment, it hasn’t been great for Torres at Chelsea and it doesn’t look like it is meant to be, but if he gets a goal off his shin in the next game, you just never know what could happen!