lionsden

No he hasn't. bale literally carried spurs on his back the entire season and showed the type of consistency (productivity and key contribution wise) only rivaled or surpassed by RVP last season, Suarez this year and CR7 in 07/08 in recent memory as i'm sure Henry,Cantona et al have had similar or better years themselves. Hazard has been no where as consistent and as influential.

1- Azpillicueta 2-Cahill 3-Hazard

For benefit of the doubt he might have meant 100 million Zimbabwean dollars. Sherwood is thick but not that thick.

Hazard deserves motm for that alone. he scored a couple of screamers last season and ever since he has been believing his own hype. What's his free kick conversion rate. I think he's only scored 3 free kicks for us that I can remember. against Basel,Villa and Nordsjaelland out of all the gazillion awful ones he's taken.

Forget hazard. This guy is the real mvp

and "Eto'o has largely disappointed" . . . . I'm convinced the author is a scouser.

There's no way he's a better prospect than Marquinhos, Shaw,Sterling and Zouma nor deserves to be ahead of those 4 players atleast.

Because he's shit perhaps?

I'm not even sure Hilario/Turnbull would do any worse if we gave them the Torres minute, patience and unconditional love upfront. Could their first touch,finishing and mental toughness be any worse really?. i doubt it. sounds like a joke/exaggeration but i'm actually dead serious.

With the way we play if we buy another technically average/deficient CF it is destined to end in tears again. players like cavani,Costa,Falcao will struggle under the current system. What we need, for a team that's absolutely clueless when it comes to creating chances, is a striker who can link up play brilliantly and can create their own chances and make lemonade out of lemon figuratively speaking like Suarez, aguero,Rooney et al.

If your definition of level means goal scoring and ability to consistently finish chances then I agree because that's what Ronaldo is or should I say has become a goal machine and nothing more. if we are talking strictly in terms of talent and all round ability/game however then suarez is miles ahead of Ronaldo. He's one of the most naturally gifted players I have ever seen.

What was more frustrating than Torres shitness was Ramires unintelligent in the build up. run towards a crowd of players instead of using your run to pull a defender away and create space. I still can't decide who has a lower football IQ between Ramires, Torres and Luiz.

I wasn't expecting success this season because I'm one of those that recognized the glaring flaws in the team right from the start and those flaws were big enough to hinder us from winning any major title. However what I expected were a shift away from the dire, boring, uncreative football that we have become accustomed to since 2010/11 season and integration of some youth/youngsters into the 1st team and he has failed in both regard. if this season was suppose to be a transition then you have to ask, transition from what and towards what. what is the end goal.

And that's why I tend to agree with those that claim Torres was purchased for his marketability. If he was bought solely for footballing reasons (which should have been the case) then everyone involved in the deal acted like amateurs and incompetent clowns. Torres was clearly a shadow of his former self way before we bought him. he didn't turn to shit overnight. The writing was clearly on the wall but chose to ignore it. that's amateurish and highly optimistic at best.

No but that just means that we don't have a striker that suits the current system . that's totally different from one player singlehandedly changing how a team plays. for example, will the purchase of Costa automatically turn us into a team capable of calving open parked defences at will like christmas turkey?. Not imo. It might make us more efficient and hopefully win more games perhaps but wouldn't necessarily alter the dynamic and outlook of the team.

You are making a totally different and completely irrelevant point. The question was give examples of great strikers "changing the system around them" not whether great strikers do score goals that helps their team achieve success.

Either way both Ancelotti and Roman are equally to blame. Ancelotti for identifying and choosing a deteriorating striker as his no 1 target and Roman for sanctioning the deal without enough relevant information and analyzing the situation thoroughly. You have to be thorough before investing such huge amount of money on anything. And if they both had all the information, factored in his poor form and injury record, tactical and technical flexibility i.e does he fit well into the team and functional in different systems etc and still decided it was a good idea to spend the money on him then that would make the transfer even more farcical than it already is.

Go ahead and give examples. if you are going to make outlandish claims then you must be able to back it up. great strikers aren't magician or superheroes.

Not to accuse you or anything op but I find the timing of this thread very convenient.

Why does this dog keep barking despite being constantly and deliberately ignored.

fair point but brazil is Brazil and Chelsea are chelsea. he is yet to replicate his NT form in the blues uniform and I can only judge him based on what he does for Chelsea not brazil. otherwise Luiz would be a great defender and Mikel would be Pirlo's successor.

To summarise it. Torres is crap but so is our build up play and attacking fluency/cohesion. A top striker will likely score more goals but will not necessarily solve the underlying issue. it's a tactical issue not an individual one. Although having the right quality/players does help to solve the issue.

The problem with your post is you are assuming or believe he has the ability nor vision to pull off adventurous and creative passes in the final third. in my opinion, he doesn't.

I'm telling you that these top strikers have scoring ratio less than 25% most of the time and they are able to flourish and score as many goals as they do because their respective teams are usually very creative and they are constantly fed with top quality service to work with. The amount of chances Aguero, Suarez,Cavani miss is mindblowing but they are allowed to do that because they usually have plenty of opportunities over the course of the game to rectify their mistake. How many dead easy/ clean through on goal/one on one/easy tap ins have our strikers had this season and missed. I bet it's not even up to 8 . but we are led to believe the team creates chances which our strikers often fail to capitalise on. With our current set up and tactical approach any striker would struggle (by their usual standard) and wouldn't perform optimally because we do not provide the right conditions for strikers to flourish. it really is that simple. We might score more goals but it will simply paper over the cracks. We need to address the underlying issue first and foremost.

I will like to see what people will blame our attacking deficiencies on when we buy a worldclass/top striker and the current problem of struggling to break down compact defences and inability to retain quality possession still persist. Some people are in for a rude awakening. The only way I see this problem being neutralised is if we can somehow find a striker with 96-100 % efficiency rate, who would make the absolute most of every scraps he gets because that's what our strikers usually have to feed on/work with. such striker might exist on mars. with the way we play football, I don't see a top striker changing much. the changes must come from the training ground which starts with a change of mentality, philosophy and direction. We all watch football and how many times have we seen world class strikers struggle because they were left isolated, frustrated and deprived of quality services upfront leading to an ineffective attacking impact from these top strikers. It happens quite a lot especially in big games due to a tactical approach and set up that doesn't allow strikers to flourish.