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Here's a plea to Fernando Torres: Make sure you follow Rafa Benitez out of the door at Chelsea.

It’s all over for the striker now. His confidence is beyond shot.

And the money he has earned over the past two years won’t have been compensation for such a torrid time, despite what fans say.

Trust me, in hindsight he’d have played for free over the last two years if it meant he would score with the frequency and quality of his time at Anfield.

But he is at the point where he has programmed himself to see success as simply hassling ­defenders who have ­stolen the ball from him.

His self-belief, his ­swagger, his smile are all gone. So are the goals.

He will sit at home ­having pondered every ­scenario – from going back to Liverpool and the ­glory days, to retirement.

He will have thought about ­going home to Spain, too.

This is all for his own comfort ­because the ­current reality is dark, desperate and lonely.

He will put on the blue of Chelsea every day and he will hate it, as he will the daily drive to Cobham for training. Nothing ­personal against Chelsea or their fine training complex, but everything he sees now that involves his club football ­experience will be negative.

I have said this before and I have to say it again: It’s time to go, Fernando. For your sake, and yours alone.

I know what you are going through.

I had an awful time at Aston Villa. My dream move, a big fee, and big ­expectation.

Torres hasn’t had my issues but I guarantee the feelings towards his club, and his game will be the same.

The unwritten football law is: If it’s not happening for you, run around, ­because that’s what the fans like to see.

I never thought I’d hear that line from a fellow player or coach, I thought it was a myth. But it is true, and that is all Torres’ club contribution is now. He runs around a bit.

I watched him at Middlesbrough this week and can assure you, he’s gone. The touch, the ­confidence, the ­reluctance to shoot, are all signs of a player in the most important part of the pitch struggling for his football life, and it’s not nice to see.

When you’re in form, a supreme ­instinct takes over. It guides you into good areas, you score the ‘simple’ goals, breeding a cockiness and self-belief that inspires you to take on the ­extraordinary.

When that goes in such a spectacular fashion, as it has for Torres, it is a ­genuinely frightening experience, and one I wouldn’t wish on any player.

He should have left after the first season. Actually, scrub that, he should never have gone to Chelsea.

The seeds were sown in his latter days at Liverpool where the signs of mental and physical fatigue from constant European club football and ­inter­national tournaments with Spain were clearly evident.

He felt though that moving to Chelsea would make things OK. And, with a serious bump in pay, who wouldn’t?

But the expectation of living up to the price tag, the lack of form going to Chelsea, the poor body language ­between him and Didier Drogba, the constant circus of managerial change, have killed the Torres we loved.

He doesn’t exist as a striker any more. And unless he finds that love of the game again, somehow, somewhere, soon, the images of his goals at the Kop will be the best ones we ever have of him.

Leave Chelsea, Fernando. Follow your mate Rafa out of the club. Please.

What next for Chelsea?

I am standing by my belief that Jose Mourinho will return to Stamford Bridge – and I reckon he will make John Terry and Frank Lampard part of the furniture.

Trust me, Mourinho won’t be going to PSG. The French league is second rate, even with Becks and Zlatan Ibrahimovic on board.

I believe Jose wants the Manchester United job, but Fergie isn’t going anywhere yet, so where else for the Special One?

Back to Chelsea of course, and with a twist. He comes in, we love him, and he makes Chelsea competitive again. But whereas several managers have had the remit: “Get rid of Frank and JT”, Mourinho won’t.

He likes them, they like him, and he knows the value of experience. He could groom them in the art of management and in a few years, when he heads off to Old Trafford, he leaves behind a ready-made managerial legendfest in Frank and JT.

This is Chelsea. Anything really can happen.