Ex-Liverpool forward will be hoping for a change of luck under the Portuguese going forward.
Check in to Transfer Window: Done Deal Alerts
Misfiring Chelsea front man Fernando Torres says that he is fit and raring to go ahead of the new Premier League season after the Spaniard’s longest break from football that he can remember, reports the Daily Mail.
The 29-year-old has just returned to pre-season training with the rest of his Blues team-mates after having been given four weeks off following his exertions with the world and European champions in the Fifa Confederations Cup in Brazil in June.
However, the club-record signing admits that while he and the other squad members who took part in the global warm-up event ahead of next summer’s World Cup finals may now be slightly behind the other Chelsea players in terms of their overall fitness going into the new Premier League season, they will nonetheless be ready for the big kick-off.
“Some of us are behind but we are trying to get fit as soon as possible. It’s difficult for us guys from the Confederations Cup to fit into the team now because the other guys have had 22 days more than us,” Torres said.
“In pre-season that’s a huge difference and you can see they are much fitter than us, so we have to work even harder to fit in because the season is right there, in two weeks’ time.
“We have to be ready for that and we know how important it is to start well.
“I don’t remember the last time I had four weeks off in a summer so it was great and now I am fully prepared for the season, which should be a good one for all of us.
“Everyone is giving everything to be in the manager’s plans.
“From the first day until now training has been great, high intensity, very fun, and so you are working hard, but using the ball in every exercise, so it’s very good.
“It is good everyone is involved together, and the manager and his assistants do small things to make you enjoy the sessions.”
And the Spain international will be desperate to make a good impression on returning Chelsea head coach Jose Mourinho by hitting the ground running right from the very off next season, starting with the west London club’s opening top-flight encounter against Steve Bruce’s newly promoted Hull City at Stamford Bridge on Sunday Aug 18.
Torres has so far scored just 34 goals in his 131 matches for Chelsea since joining the club from Liverpool for £50 million in January 2011.