Torres can play as a winger.
He has for Spain and been one of their best if not the best player across the last year or so.
Just isnt the type to play on by line and take ball knock past opponent and get ball in.
Has skill and enough pace and needs to be allowed to drift central at times to sniff chances which he was doing at times v Real.
I would guess he will be CF in next game with Dembele and Fati either side of him but longer term on the right.
A few things to consider:
1. NT football in general is way different to a club football. Why?
1) teams are together for a very short period of time and there isn't too much chemistry and understanding among teams.
That means that their defenses, blocks and everything is often way weaker than among top clubs or even among EPL midtable clubs
2) even players like Busi look way better in NT team than in club football. Why?
Because teams don't have as good pressing and automatic movements, covering, pressing, roles like in a club football where they play together for 320 days per season.
My point: NT football is a strange case and often some so-so teams and so-so players can look awesome in those circumstances due to a lot of factors:
1) if a player hasn't played enough in that season and now he is angry, motivated, in form against other NT teams who don't have chemistry and who are dead tired after a long season
2) or the opponents are just meh, so everyone can look better than in club football (something similar to preseason friendlies where even Puig and Samper sometimes look like awesome players)
3) also, due to NT teams having low chemistry, in the NT football often a huge advantage is when some NT teams have a lot of players from the same club or from the same footballing philosophy (like Spain or Netherlands).
Spain has a lot of players from Barcelona and and a lot of players who generally understand that type of football, so imo it is safe to say that majority of Spanish players will look better in a Spanish NT teams than English players from 7-8 different EPL teams playing in some weird new formation and system from Southgate
One more time, this is why Busi is Spanish NT team looks better than Busi in Barcelona.
The same could be said for Pedri and Olmo.
And now the question is: could we apply the same logic for Torres?
So, my point is: yes, some of these players had nice NT matches or Euros.
But I personally wouldn't put too much emphasis on NT football and to me way better indicator of someone's true abilities is a club football.
And now, regarding club football:
1. Torres at Valencia was a so-so meh winger. One more time, we had a choice between Torres from Valencia and Trincao in a summer of 2020 and we picked Trincao. That's how "impressive" Torres was at Valencia.
2. City? You watched him more than us since you follow City. From what I see from City's fans (and I posted their replies in this topic 2 weeks ago), majority of fans said that:
1) he is not a classical winger
2) he is slowish
3) he doesn't hog the touchline but his position heat map is something like Messi's but closer to the box, something in between RW and a No9.
4) he isn't a good dribbler
5) he is often a ghost in matches and you forget that he is even on a field, but then he pops up with a goal
So, basically, the shortest review of him till now is: not a winger, not a striker, a ghost, but he knows how to score out of nowhere. But in terms of playmaking abilities = don't expect too much.
I went to Youtube and tried to find those videos like Torres vs Aston Villa where you see a player in a single game, to analyze his touches and actions in club football, but there aren't too many of his videos from single matches, which is not a good sign.
Majority of his most viewed videos are: this is why Barcelona bought Torres and then we have goals and actions against Germany or from Euros.
A reminder, the same happened 4 years ago when we had videos: this is why Barca bought Dembele, who had a good NT friendly (lol) against England. And that match is still the highlight of his career 5 years later.
Or, we had similar compilations: Frenkie De jong, the future of football: his touches vs Germany in Nations league (lol).
About Torres' club matches, here are some videos:
His most viewed video is against Barcelona and he didn't make a single run as a winger and didn't make a single useful dribble in the opponent's half.
Against Eibar, he is better. He even has 2-3 good actions but in general, my general feeling is: have we just paid 65m for a 20m-worth guy?
After these club-football videos, I would describe him as some mix between:
1. Sergi Roberto playing as a RW
2. Pedro with 50% of Pedro's skills and workrate
3. scoring random banger out of nowhere
Imo, extremely weird player and imo, people who think that we bought a classical winger will be sad quite soon.
