DYC.

What's African pace?

The point is your strikers don't have to be your main men. He doesn't? 17 goals in 25 starts (two sub appearances) in the PL in 2011, pretty decent return if you ask me. I don't think we're getting anywhere with this discussion . So it's best to end it right now.

He's not leaving Milan, he wants to become future captain and a legend there.

Who says your striker has to be your main man? Torres never won a major title, Henry never won the CL in his prime, Rooney wasn't Utd's main man when they won the CL and was only their main man in their recent won PL title and Eto'o, despite his greatness, was always outshone by another player (Ronaldinho and Messi). Lampard was our main man in winning the league titltes 04-06, it wasn't until 09/10 that he really lead us to titles. Drogba only twice managed to score 20+ goals in the league.and we never won the CL with him. No matter how good you are as a striker you need a great team and a bit of luck behind you to win things, ask Ronaldo (never won the CL). And while I don't expect him to become such a great, who expected that Eto'o, Van Nistelrooy, Henry etc. would become the strikers they eventually became?

Well I still don't recall him getting any good opportunities to score with his head really. When you call someone's heading ability awful, it would mean that the player fails to put in free headers a lot. But yeah, he's not strong in the air. But then again, Van Persie, the best CF in the league by a mile, isn't good in the air either. I never said his balance was better than Henry, Eto'o and Torres though he's similar to Torres in terms of balance. I'm surprised you say that about Sturridge, he really does have good balance. These are just examples but check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxqWZTnY6Xo&feature=fvwrel (0:45, against Djourou) (4:53, against Song) Going down easily sometimes is not the same as being weak. For years Drogba had a tendency of going down easily and I don't have to tell you anything about Drogba's strength. Again, I never said his link-up play is good (not a necesity in a striker's game though) and that he can play with his back to the goal. I even said that he needs to learn to play with his back to the goal a few months ago if the coach is still planning on turning Chelsea into a possession football team. But he can learn all that. Torres was terrible with his back to the goal when he first joined, the same with his link-up play. This season he's actually been decent in those two areas, even pretty good at times. And only Ronaldo was a clinical finisher at a similar stage of his career. 6 months(!) has Sturridge played regular football as a striker in his career due to him playing for clubs where they don't take time to nurture youngsters. Add the fact that he played on the wings in his second season at Chelsea, hardly if any as a starter, and plays on the wings now too. Really, you can only expect all the things you mentioned from some superstar striker you bought for 50 mil.. Hmm that depends on your definition of a top class striker. If you mean him becoming the next Henry or Van Nistelrooy then no, I don't expect him to reach such a level. But I can see Sturridge scoring around 20 goals in the PL regularly with time and a good team behind him (without him suffering too many injuries). If it wasn't for his injury, he'd probably have around 11 or 12 goals in the league already. I guess we just disagree on this one .

Henry, Torres, Pato, Eto'o? And he's no Drogba but he's not weak at all, he never gets pushed around and holds up quite well to strong defenders. I wonder how you find his heading awful though when his heading ability has hardly been on display (I'd understand if you said he doesn't carry a aerial threat). Completely disagree with your post. He showed at Bolton that he's a striker. He's fast, agile, knows hows to get past a man (not only by speed but also by using trickery and imagination) plus he's very sharp to react, which he has shown by getting on the end of crosses quite a lot even though he plays on the sides so he's got a poacher in him. And most importantly, he has a knack of scoring goals. He does need to work on his finishing though he seems worse than he actually is due to to the fact that he likes to shoot from very ambitious positions. I hope AVB will address him on that. But I think you're forgetting about the fact that he's only been playing regular first-team football for just over year now. He's still very inexperienced so he's still raw and he has a lot to learn. Before the '10/11 season, our alleged target Cavani for example was considered somewhat of a flop and look at him now.. He definitely has a lot of potential, I'm not saying he's the new Henry though, and is better suited to the CF position for sure.

Leave him alone.

He does but does that change the fact that he does little for us offensively nowadays? I'm constantly trying to find the good he does up front but everytime I just can't help but agree with those who say it would be best if he left in the summer.

Danny has gone crazy..

C'mon Chels!!

Don't understand what's happening but i like it, i like it a lot

I've always liked him and you could easily tell that he was a talented player. Too bad the grass is always greener on the other side for us/the club (no this is not based on the fact that he scored against Inter).

True. These are not happy times.

Incorrect. Torres was bought because of this, to be our saviour. Haha.

You mean our defence is shit with Bosingwa.

It lacks world-class players to be the best imo, filled with great potential throughout though, but it is a very enjoyable league. I have been following the league more and more and it's very entertaining. If only Dortmund didn't lose Sahin.. they could've become a top team with Reus joining in the summer.

It's not a bad thing but like Spike said, it's a bonus and we lack pace in our side. There are plenty of fast players who turn out just fine even though they lose their speed btw (Giggs, Figo, Maradona, Ronaldo etc.). Walcott just lacks intelligence and technique and Owen would still be a quality striker if it wasn't for his terrible fitness really.

Sadly he's not really fast, kind of Mata-ish.

Lazy? Nahh. Tired? Yes.

What was Mourinho thinking.. starting with 7 defenders and 3 attackers. No Ozil or Kaka to connect defence/midfield with attack. Pepe should be commited. Even Carvalho and Xabi were just kicking around.

That was hilarious, worst defender in the league.

I agree, good signs. Wonder how much pace he'll recover. And he needs his engine.

He can even score by accident .

I never said we couldn't afford it? But when you think about the fact that Drogba is on 100k a week, a contract he signed when he was still one of the best strikers around (also taking into account that attackers always get paid a lot more money), and read Cahill will receive 80k week, it doesn't seem right to me. You don't have to agree with me but that's just how I feel.

Stressed out, nahh. Sorry for actually caring about our club making sane financial decisions, kind of worrying we can only attract a player of the calibre of Cahill for such wages (at least, so it seems).