El Nino back on form! ...Chelsea striker Fernando Torres continues revival under Jose Mourinho

Fernando Torres continued his revival under Jose Mourinho as he tapped home in the final minute to give Chelsea an invaluable 2-1 win over Manchester City at Stamford Bridge on Sunday afternoon.

This is exactly how José Mourinho said things might turn out in his most fevered whispers into the ear of Fernando Torres, a centre-forward he inherited a little ungraciously in his second spell at Chelsea, like a chipped Wedgwood gravy boat from a spendthrift aunt, but who has since been the subject of a concerted Mourinho reconditioning project.

Torres's winning goal in the last minute of this densely fought Premier League match was a compellingly direct, even rather Didier Drogba-like intervention. Combined with Torres's first-half ragging of Gaël Clichy in a 10-minute spell during which he seemed briefly to have been replaced by a ravenous robot double, this was confirmation of a player not so much back to his best – that Torres has now decisively passed – as experiencing a moment of cautiously hopeful personal reinvention.

In part the winning goal was created by a fortunate confluence of errors, starting with John Terry's failed hoof downfield and ushered along by Joe Hart's wild dash off his line as the ball held up in the gusting wind. But it was also testimony both to Torres's energy levels and a new-found sense of untempered directness as he flustered Matija Nastasic into heading back past Hart and then sprinted on to slide the ball into the empty net as Chelsea's entire bench erupted, leaping up in a concerted charge like a mini-frontier of startled antelope.

It was Torres's fifth goal in 10 matches in a season that has, to date, been more notable for a textural transformation.

"We need his physicality there. The people that play behind him are a little fragile," Mourinho said afterwards, and it is this additional physicality that marks out "New Fighting Fernando", not so much a Torres as a toro.

Mourinho has always had a thing for the forward-bullock, the player who can drive a pair of centre-backs towards their own goal, carry the ball forwards and generally test both the mobility and muscle of an opposition's spine, so much so that at Real Madrid he helped transform Cristiano Ronaldo into a kind of sui generis high-grade central battering ram. Mourinho has done what he can at his Lukaku-less Chelsea, producing out of the occasionally hangdog Late Torres a cautiously encouraging vision of Fernando 2.0. It is in part a physical transformation. Torres was encouraged to bulk up under Rafael Benítez, who noticed his diminished muscle mass from his Liverpool days. Under Mourinho he looks more toned, more lithe, less curvaceous in vital areas – and simply more aggressive too.

In the end, the result was harsh on City as they looked the better side for the majority of the game, but with their keeper and defence continuing to make mistakes there’s always a chance they will concede. And with El Nino back on form, Chelsea could be the team to stop this year.


Credit: Barney Ronay (The Guardian) & Jason Farell (Setanta)