After the 0-0 draw against Queens Park Rangers, I wasn't particularly pleased with a number of Chelsea players. But the image that will stand out in folks' mind is Fernando Torres trudging down the tunnel after being substituted for Daniel Sturridge. It was an odd thing for a non-injured player to do, and many are attributing it to a sudden attack of petulance on the striker's part. I don't think we can possibly get inside Torres' head unless we ask him, so I'm reluctant to make a huge deal of it. Fortunately, Roberto di Matteo is as well, despite being peppered with questions about it:
No, no, absolutely not [worried about Torres]. We are a team and everybody has responsibility. We're looking for other players to score goals as well. I think it's a team sport. I wouldn't individually go player by player. I thought, as a team, we played well, our center forward worked very hard, he had a chance in the first half to score as well, a half-decent chance in the second half.
-Source: ESPN.
Di Matteo's entirely correct here. Two weeks ago, Torres won a penalty and scored a very nice goal to give us a 2-0 win against Newcastle United. He had a poor game against QPR, sure, but that isn't what we should be defining him by. Players are allowed to struggle (Ramires, last year's most influential player, has certainly had a worse start to the season) every now and then, and we won't know if Torres is in an extended slump until... well, he actually has one.