Torres has hardly played.
I genuinely don't know why he's (slightly) slower, but he is, IMO. I'm not a doctor (yeah, I know, hard to believe) so I don't understand the reasons it could happen, but I would say it has. But as I said, I think he's become a more considered player since losing the half-yard, so it's swings and roundabouts.
It might be connected to all the injuries. Sometimes it's psychological.... Giggs in his late twenties could probably run as fast as he could at seventeen, if he had to, but it looked like he was scared to open up fully in case the groin went. Same with Owen now. Rooney's injuries have been more bone breaks though, so maybe not.
I just think that judging a player's speed - from watching on TV and or the stands - is such an inexact science you can't take the perception of an observer as an accurate barometer of his true speed. There's all sorts of examples of fans being a poor judge of how quick a player really is. I remember SAF recently pointing out the fastest player he has ever managed was Gary Pallister, I doubt he would have been the first name mentioned by anyone on redcafe!
Maybe not the fastest ever, but he was clearly fast as feck and everyone knew it.
Pogue said:
When Rooney burst on the scene there was such a buzz around him and we got so excited about his potential that there's every chance we were perceiving him as being quicker than he really was. You've also got to bear in mind he wasn't paid as much attention by defenders and was much better able to engineer a one on one against a defender and beat them comprehensively enough to give him a yard head start. These days he's usually got at least two defenders all over him the second he's got the ball and they're much wiser to the (somewhat limited, to be fair) array of tricks he might use to beat them.
This is a good point, the arms race between attackers and defenders doesn't get enough focus. Especially with wingers... people are very quick to declare that the likes of Lennon have lost it after a difficult season or two, but usually it's because defenders have learnt where to position themselves to stop the getting a yard of space, and they have to rethink their moves.
Pogue said:
I just can't buy this theory that he's in decline, physically. I think it's much much more likely that he's just as quick, if not quicker, but less likely to get the wide open spaces to exploit it.... Beside, he still looks quick as feck when he needs to be. Left the West Ham defence for dead when he scored at the weekend and frequently kept pace with Ronaldo on breakaway goals in the last couple of seasons (including that amazing goal against Arsenal)
I'm certainly not saying he's in decline, it's not like he's getting slower every year. I just think he's lost half a yard since he was eighteen. It's not just general explosiveness and getting away from his man, you can see it when he's put through on goal - balls he would have reached the keeper gets to just before him. It's no catastrophe, he's still quick.