Small mercies as patient Torres hints at recovery

What would you prescribe for Fernando Torres, a striker in recovery from a traumatic loss of form?

Several managerial physicians have come and gone at Chelsea without finding the cause of what ails him, with Rafael Benitez, the family doctor who knows him best, the latest to seek the answer.

Benitez will have established that a rest cure is out of the question. Such radical treatment saw Roberto Di Matteo sacked in the early morning after he left Torres out of Chelsea's last Champions League tie in Turin.

Having watched his patient labour through three league games since then without a goal, extending his scoreless streak to seven largely excruciating matches, the visit of FC Nordsjaelland must have seemed a perfect tonic.

Who better to plump up the patient's self-esteem and help relocate that sense of certainty in front of goal than the owners of Champions League's leakiest defence, in London with no chance of qualifying?

So it proved. After several false starts, spurned opportunities and two penalty kicks inexplicably passed up by Chelsea's No?9, it worked. On a night where small mercies were all Chelsea and their truculent supporters had to be grateful for, Torres scored twice.

A brace against the porous Danes does not mean he is restored to full health, but there were signs of genuine life against opponents whose poor quality offered him no excuses.

Neither goal was a classic, and the Europa League opponents for Chelsea who lie ahead will lose more sleep over Juan Mata than Torres, but it was a start. His first came after 45 minutes that had done little to stir Stamford Bridge out of a similar sense of gloomy introspection that has appeared to afflict Torres.

His first in more than 550 minutes of football, it was not a classic to set alongside the instinctive masterpieces on his highlights reel and owed a little to luck, but it was deserved.

This was not an effervescent performance from Torres But there was enough to suggest that the patient may be in remission, for now at least. While hardly a study in perpetual motion he was a willing runner,

offering himself for short passes with back to goal, and trying to break into the channels when the more direct pass was on.

He almost scored after six minutes, goalkeeper Jesper Hansen saving smartly at his near post after he robbed Nicolai Stokholm with an urgency absent for much of the last month.

The goal finally came courtesy of a straightforward ball into the outside- right channel from Victor Moses. Having escaped Michael Parkhurst, Torres's shot hit the advancing Hansen and rebounded to the centre-forward. Gifted a second chance he made no mistake, steering the ball from a tightening angle into the net.

The celebrations were not wild - he has not lost his self-awareness along with his form - but there were enough congratulations from his team-mates to suggest Torres is not a man alone.

Had he taken them he could have had a hat-trick before he got his second, a far more encouraging product of a sweeping exchange with Hazard that began 40 yards from goal and ended with Torres tucking the ball home at the near post.

As Chelsea turned their first-half labours into a romp, with further goals from Gary Cahill, Juan Mata and Oscar, Torres could have had a hat-trick. Hansen again saved at his near post, and he should have had a penalty when Parkhurst shoved him in the back.

He will not quibble. The match-ball from the game in which Chelsea became the first Champions League holders to go out in the group stage is not one to treasure. The unfamiliar sound of the Matthew Harding Stand briefly singing his name will have meant a great deal more, and done as much to speed his recovery as anything.