Fernando Torres is confident he can rediscover the form that made him one of the most feared strikers in football as he attempts to spearhead Chelsea’s Premier League campaign.

The 27-year-old Spaniard has endured a miserable start to his career at Stamford Bridge since joining from Liverpool in a record £50-million deal in January, scoring just one goal in 18 appearances last term.

Torres’ struggles have seen him battling to avoid comparisons to another expensively acquired Chelsea misfit, Andriy Shevchenko, the Ukrainian striker foisted on former coach Jose Mourinho by owner Roman Abramovich.

Just as Mourinho had done with Shevchenko, Chelsea’s former manager Carlo Ancelotti struggled to find a system which brought the best out of Torres, who was invariably out-shone by Didier Drogba in key matches.

Now the Torres conundrum has landed in the lap of new manager Andre Villas-Boas, who insisted during Chelsea’s recent pre-season tour of Asia that the striker’s problems were overblown.

“My obsession is to win trophies with this team and take them to success,” Villas-Boas said.

“Rather than individually, I’d prefer to address it as a ‘forward sector’ and focus on people gaining confidence to find the back of the net.

“That comes with training, patience and tolerance, which it looks like he isn’t getting at this moment. But we at Chelsea are ready to give our forwards this kind of patience.

“I disagree that he is lacking in confidence. Every time a player doesn’t score, people ask questions about him. I know he is a 50 million pound striker but people’s focus is purely on the individual and not the performance of the team. You know the importance the collective has for me. I’m not going to lose time over this.”

The first sign that Villas-Boas’s faith in Torres would be justified came in the final of the Asia Trophy in Hong Kong, when the Spaniard sealed victory over Aston Villa with a sure-footed finish with his first touch after coming on as a substitute.

Torres, who admitted the goal had given his confidence a lift, had previously bridled at suggestions that his best days were behind him.

“I’m 27. I don’t forget to score goals, I will score,” Torres said bluntly during a function in Hong Kong.

Chelsea captain John Terry has also dismissed comparisons between Shevchenko and Torres, rejecting suggestions that the injury problems which have sporadically dogged the Spaniard in recent seasons were more serious than feared.

“That’s unfair to Nando,” Terry said.

“Torres’ been open about the injury he had at the 2010 World Cup. We knew about that. Then he joined us and ideally would have scored more goals than he did.

“For now we’re all 85-90 percent with our fitness and so is he. But we’ll keep working and hopefully he will be ready and he’ll hit the ground running when the season starts.

“He’s happy. He’s settled. Naturally there’s a bit of pressure on him but he can deal with it. He’s one of the best strikers in the world, after all. He’s hungry to win as well. He wants to win the Premier League. That’s what he spoke about first when he joined us.

“It was something he couldn’t do at Liverpool, and the hunger remains with him just as it is with me to win that trophy.”