The statistics can be deceiving can't they. On paper 15 goals in a season when you're just in January might look quite good and some might use it to justify that Torres is still a top quality striker. I'd disagree wholeheartedly. Let's analyse his goals shall we.
Torres 15 goals:
With RDM at the helm:
Community shield vs Man City. (Glorified friendly).
Reading (home) (wasn't it offside too).
Newcastle (home)
Wolves (home) League Cup) Championship opposition
Arsenal (away)
Norwich (home)
Shakhtar (home)
Post RDM
Nordsjaelland (home) 2 goals.
Sunderland (away) 2 goals (1 penalty)
Monterrey (WCC)
Leeds (away) League cup. Championship side
Villa (home) 1 goal in 8 (we scored 5 after he went off)
Bretnford (away) F.A Cup - League 1 opposition.
We've scored something like 92 goals in all competitions so far.
Torres has hit 15 of those. Those 15 coming in just 13 games out of the 40 games we have played so far. He played in just about all of those games (bar Juve away) and a couple since Ba came in).
Of the 15 he has scored:
8 have come against Premier League sides, only 3 aginst what you could call top quality sides (Arsenal, Man City (and that was the CS) and Shakhtar.
6 (of the 7 league goals) have come against sides struggling near the foot of the table.
6 against championship/league 1 and low quality foreign opposition.
He just doesn't do it in tough games against good opponents and having a striker that just isn't good enough is one of the main reasons we have struggled.
He scored 7 before RDM left, supposedly FSW was brought in to rejuvenate him. He has scored 8 since of which 5 were against lower than Premier League opposition and 2 were against a Sunderland side who were struggling to get any kind of result at the time and the other one, 1 of the eight goals we scored against Villa in an absolute tonking and we scored 5 after Torres went off.
It's fair to say that even in the games he has scored he has often been dismal. He has also missed a lot more chances than he has scored. Some of them could have been crucial too.
Anyone who thinks he is good really is wearing rose tinted spectacles.