I left Chelsea because I was not appreciated - Fernando Torres

Fernando Torres has revealed that he left Chelsea for AC Milan because he was not appreciated well enough at Stamford Bridge.

Torres joined Chelsea in January 2011 as the then British record transfer fee of £50 million (€63m), having seen his remarkable early standards at Liverpool suffer a dip.

The former Liverpool and Atletico Madrid player did not live up to expectation at the Bridge as he could not replicate his goalscoring form and never truly justified his price-tag during his three and a half years at the west London side.

"Mourinho has always been good to me," Torres told Cuatro. "The decision to leave was a personal one because I needed more, I needed to feel important.

"Mourinho and I have a good relationship and still today we continue to talk to each other."

Speculation was rife during the summer that Torres could return to Atletico this summer but the 30-year-old claims such a move was never an option.

"There wasn’t a genuine option to return," he added. "The media speculated it and I didn’t like that.

"I’ve said it many times: I won’t go to Atletico to retire. I will go if I have motivation to compete because their team today is very different than when I was there.

“I follow them every weekend, but they were never an option that were real."