Didier Drogba: Fernando Torres found '22 kings' at Chelsea

Posted Friday, November 20, 2015 by ESPN

Didier Drogba said Fernando Torres found it difficult when he moved from Liverpool to Chelsea because he was just one of "22 kings" at Stamford Bridge.

Chelsea, then under Carlo Ancelotti, broke the British transfer record when they signed Torres from Liverpool in January 2011 for £50 million, but the Spain international was never able to recapture the form he had shown at Anfield.

Drogba said in his autobiography, "Commitment," that Torres had struggled to adapt after joining the reigning Premier League and FA Cup winners.

"With all due respect to Liverpool, at that club, Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres had been the kings," Drogba wrote. "At Chelsea, there were 22 kings. So I really felt for Nando, because I knew how difficult the situation was for him."

He added: "At Liverpool, the team was geared around him as their main striker. It wasn't that others couldn't score -- they could -- but they fed him the ball, they structured the team around him with the aim that he would score. That's not how it was at Chelsea."

Drogba's form had been suffering after a bout of malaria at the time of the Torres deal, and he added: "As I was 32, people inevitably started to think, 'Ah, he's not what he was before, he's over the hill.'

"Suddenly Fernando Torres was signed, partly because I had been ill and partly because, as they told me, they wanted to start preparing the succession, the time when I was no longer around. 'OK, I'm not done yet, but hey, no problem!' I felt like saying.

"I understood the club's point of view, though. They had to anticipate, and I had to accept."

Didier Drogba: Fernando Torres found '22 kings' at Chelsea
Didier Drogba said he changed his game to help Fernando Torres fit in at Chelsea.

However, Drogba said "the manager completely changed the system to accommodate" Torres.

Ancelotti said after leaving Chelsea that Drogba would have to be sold if Torres were to thrive because he "tends to swallow up all his competitors," but the Ivorian said he did all he could to help the new arrival.

Drogba said: "I wanted him to fit in, so I had to change the way I was playing. I went a bit wider, or dropped back a bit more, like a fake No. 10, and he would be on his own up-front.

"For the previous two years, I had been playing centrally up-front alongside Nicolas Anelka and finishing the moves. We were now adapting in order for Nando to fit into the team, and that didn't really work."

Drogba said he had been in a "similar situation" when he had arrived at Chelsea from Marseille in 2004, although he acknowledged that he had not done his homework upon arrival at the club.

Recalling his first days with the Blues, he said: "I noticed a tall, strong guy who looked so young, and who walked and carried himself in such a way that I assumed he was from the reserves.

"'That's interesting,' I thought. 'They've obviously brought him over to get a bit of senior squad experience.'

"Towards the end of the session I asked another player who the young guy was. 'It's the captain!' he replied, laughing. 'John Terry.' That's how little I know about the team -- I hadn't even recognised their new young captain."