Brukner: Torres not mentally strong

By ESPNSTAR.com staff

Brukner worked with Torres at Anfield and tried to help him recover from a knee injury suffered prior to the 2010 FIFA World Cup. 

There appears to be some currency to the theory that the Chelsea forward still has not recuperated from that injury as his goalscoring record since then has been abysmal. The Spaniard has only 14 Premier League goals to his name in the past three seasons and looks like a spent force during most outings for the west London outfit. 

The Australian believes that Torres, unlike other players, does not have the strength to get his career back on track. He points to the fact that Torres has found success wherever he went prior to his January 2011 move and therefore was not prepared for the high-pressure environment at Stamford Bridge.

"Fernando Torres has had a dream life. He's had a dream career. He's never had a setback. Everything had gone so well," Brukner explained to talkSPORT.

"He'd gone from Atletico [Madrid] to Liverpool. He was a sensation when he came to Liverpool. 

"It's all about how you cope with setbacks and he had these injury setbacks and maybe some elite sports people aren't conditioned to deal with them.

"The rest of us are used to setbacks and have them every day and maybe we get better at coping with setbacks than elite players."

Brukner also believes that physical problems, coupled with a loss of confidence, continue to plague Torres. 

"His injuries [in 2010] were reasonably serious. He had some knee problems. He had a number of arthroscopies in his knee and certainly his knee is not 100%." 

"How much that is affecting his football is hard to say. On occasions you see some excellent play from Fernando.

"I think the timing was unfortunate. It happened at the end of the season just before the 2010 World Cup. He was obviously desperate to play at the World Cup and probably pushed things a little too hard.

"When he joined the Spanish team, he probably got a bit overenthusiastic and pushed too hard too early, had a setback, then had a very disappointing World Cup even though he's got a World Cup winners medal.

"He came back to Liverpool and wasn't happy at Liverpool. He was very frustrated and basically I think he lost a lot of confidence. Whether that was partly related to his knee, whether he didn't have 100% confidence in his knee, [I don't know].

"The testing we did at Liverpool showed he was still the fastest player at the club when he was there. So I think a lot of it is confidence, confidence in his physical ability to do things and also confidence in his ability to do things mentally." 

Torres lost his place in the starting XI when Chelsea crashed out of the Capital One Cup at the semi-final stage with defeat at the hands of Swansea.