Torres must shine on at Valencia

Can you hear the drums, Fernando? Abba would not have had an enigmatic centre-forward in mind when they penned the opening line to their classic 70s anthem but everything the Chelsea forward seemingly does at the moment could be followed by a drum roll.Sublime goal at the home of the Premier League champions. Horrendous miss soon afterwards. Brilliantly dispatched opener in front of the Shed End. Gruesome two-footed lunge rewarded with inevitable red card minutes later.Roll up, roll up for the Fernando Torres circus. The hottest ticket in town. Featuring the good, the bad and the ugly, often shoehorned into one unmissable passage of play.Much as the player, his manager and club may detest it, the man procured for £50million eight months ago has become a walking headline. Why write about anything else when Torres is providing such a wealth of fabulous material?Nevertheless, when he looks at himself in the shaving mirror this morning and reflected upon his rollercoaster ride against Swansea City, Torres could consider himself marginally in credit, just as he was after his hit-and-horror-miss display against Manchester United six days previously.The cold facts are that he has started two games and scored two goals that would take pride of place in any striker's portfolio. The barren desert of one goal in his first 23 games for Chelsea has made way for more hospitable terrain where the net bulges and the crowd roar his name.Not that Chelsea fans ever lost the faith in their record signing to deliver. But, when he returns to his native Spain on Wednesday for the Champions League fixture against Valencia and lines up again in domestic competition after completing his three-match ban, they will expect, rather than hope, that he will provide the cutting edge so absent for most of his angst-ridden spell in a blue jersey.That does not make Torres' contribution against Swansea any less worthy of prominence online, in print, on the airwaves or on TV screens.Against United, there was a sign, in the way he adjusted his body to slide in his goal, that Torres, whose very name used to send defenders into a cold sweat, had climbed off rock bottom.Further proof came at the Bridge against Premier League new boys who make up for their lack of big-game experience with whole-hearted commitment and a playing style that is easy on the eye and capable of creating goalscoring opportunities.In the 29th minute, Juan Mata loaded the gun for the club's misfiring marksman with a dinked ball that expertly quantified the movement of Torres, who had lulled Angel Rangel into playing him onside. The striker's first touch was to chest the ball by his own feet, and, after turning with the balletic ease that Liverpool worshippers remember so fondly, his second was to send it unerringly into the far corner way beyond the grasp of Michel Vorm. It was an outstanding illustration of the centre-forward's art.The gladiatoral roar of approval from the home fans was that bit louder than the noise which greeted their other three goals of the afternoon. They recognised how significant it was that the man in who Roman Abramovich invested so much faith was showing signs of recapturing the form that once made him the most feared striker on the planet.Seven minutes later, Torres was heavily involved in Chelsea's beautifully executed second goal, foraging by the halfway line to pick up a loose ball and send it into the path of Ashley Cole, whose metronomic pass between backtracking defenders and midfielders sent the outstanding Ramires through on goal. The Brazilian, fast emerging as the most influential midfielder at the club, emphatically finished the first of his two carbon-copy goals of the afternoon.Shortly afterwards, Torres undid much of his impressive work with a terrible, two-footed lunge on Mark Gower that even Andre Villas-Boas accepted deserved to be met with a red card.Whether it was due to the adrenaline surging through his veins or, what Brendan Rodgers reckoned was the player "trying to show his intention at the moment that he's fighting for everything", it was a stupid miscalculation. Although he made minimal contact with Gower, the damage could have been far more pronounced, and the ball, close to the halfway line, was not in an area of the pitch that demanded recklessness.It left his team to play for the majority of the match with 10 men for the second game in a week, an outcome that would not have been appreciated by his colleagues.However, it should be remembered that Torres' acts of violence are as rare as a prosperous day for the Euro. This was his first red card in English football, the last coming in September 2006 when he was still an Atletico Madrid player.So, amid the wild peaks and falls of the last week, where should we judge the barometer of Torres' footballing health to rest ahead of his return to Spain?Even taking into account his brain fart against Swansea and his Ronny Rosenthal moment against United, Torres will begin the Valencia match - assuming he takes his rightful place in attack - as a far bigger threat to the opposition than he was this time a week ago.He has rediscovered his scoring touch, his movement looks sharper and even his speed across the turf appears to have improved a few notches.Doom-mongers might argue that by the time he is available for his next Premier League match - against Arsenal on October 29 - he will be rusty and back to square one once again.The circus will resume and the drums will recommence their beating.