For Manchester City star Ferran Torres, coming up against Sheffield United proved to be something of a culture shock. Torres – a summer signing from Valencia in his native Spain – is a winger by trade but has been deployed as a makeshift striker by Pep Guardiola on occasion following injuries to Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus. Torres admits that facing United’s three-man defence was quite the eye-opener for him.
Ferran Torres said “With the injuries of Agüero and Gabriel Jesus, the coach raised it to me, he told me that he saw me there (up front), Guardiola insists on everything, it is very different from how he had been playing at Valencia. He has tested me on the left and on the front, he is helping me to be able to play in all attack positions. In the first games I took terrible blows. You have to be smart and try to go to into challenges as little as possible because the central defenders are very strong. You have to be quick and make those runs, because that also hurts the centre-backs. It blew me away when we played Sheffield. They put up a defence of three very guerrilla-like centre-backs. There, you realise what the Premier League is like.”