Time to map out a plan for Villa's future
- Says blogger Matthew Turvey
Albion boss alert to Fernando Torres
Friday 19th August 2011, 1:45PM BST.
Albion boss Roy Hodgson fears the Baggies will face ‘the real Fernando Torres’ tomorrow – after admitting he never got to work with the Spaniard at full strength.
Hodgson’s men will come face to face with the £50m forward he was managing at Liverpool a year ago.
And, with Torres’s performance for Chelsea against Stoke last week having earned praise from fans and pundits, Hodgson insists he never doubted the 27-year-old would get back to his best.
Hodgson said: “Fernando is a good bloke and a serious professional. I was unlucky that I caught him and a few other players on the back of a World Cup and, in his case, an unsuccessful World Cup.
“I caught him as a player at the time with quite serious injury problems. His wife was having a baby, so it was an important time in his life.
“If you take that short period of time we worked together, there were a lot of things going on in his life which had little to do with football and which I couldn’t control.
“But I never doubted him as a person or doubted him as a player. It was bold of Chelsea to pay a big transfer fee for him when the consensus was he wasn’t at his best.
“But I always believed it was a move which would pay dividends. He is a top quality player and I fear I shall see that at close hand on Saturday.
“I can only hope he takes pity on me and has a bad game out of sympathy.”
Hodgson also believes a summer without football will have refreshed Torres ahead of his first full season for Chelsea.
The Baggies boss said: “I think he needed a rest, that was for certain. It had been a long year.
“Has the break done Fernando a bit of good? I am sure it has and I am sure breaks do everyone a bit of good.”
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