themightyblue

Not shown anything to justifyleading the line yet, was non-existant in his 30 minutes for England yesterday. Needs to step it up

How would he be a backwards step? I won't admit to have watched a lot of his game, but what we need is someone that can score goals and link up play as the striker. His goal record is impressive this season and i'm sure Chelsea know what there doing. Its not always about buying world class players. I'd prefer to buy a player that has talent and can actually fit in our system, rather than a 'world class' player who we'd be paying large sums of money for and is just as big a gamble. Don't let a price tag fool you

"There is interest in the player from the Premier League, Chelsea, Aston Villa included," Kacou told Sky Sports. Bony said of the chance to join Roberto Di Matteo's side: "My agent is dealing with all enquiries but being linked with Chelsea is a dream come true, they are a very big club, and my hero [Didier] Drogba was there!" This might be a goer then

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2230017/Chelsea-starlet-Lucas-Piazon-dazzles-victory-Molde-NextGen-Series.html

ChelsTransferGossip ‏@ChelsTransfer Dutch newspaper Telegraaf claim #CFC are set to make an £8m offer for Vitesse Arnhem striker Wilfried Bony (17 goals in last 20 games)#CFC http://www.metro.co.uk/sport/football/917327-chelsea-leading-race-for-new-didier-drogba-wilfried-bony?ITO=socialnet-twitter-button

Thought he was much improved tonight

Have to say, just looked at the Match Thread and I know its easy to say in hindsight, but found some of the comments on the thread an absolute joke. Emotion do run high, but its better to just think before typing rather than saying something idiotic. From 60 minutes onwards we dominated. A draw was maybe a fair result, but we fought right till the very end and so for that the team deserves credit. Onward to Liverscum!

Bad game from him, but still got a huge future at Chelsea. Hope he plays a blinder against Liverpool

We'll definitely see a CM come in. We'll only have Romeu, Ramires and Lampard as Mikel is the AFCON and we look weak there as it is in terms of depth. Robbie has spoken about a lack of options upfront with only Torres and Sturridge, so i'm damn sure a striker will come in too. There's a chance of a CB coming in, and we've seen numerous links to quite a few for a while So CM and CF will be definitely be added imo, and then possibly a CB For CM would like a player who has good enough discipline to play as a DM, but is also capable of attacking and acting sort of box to box. Witsel is an example, but obviously he's unrealistic For CF, I wouldn't even mind really as long as its not Remy because I don't really rate him. We just need a goalscorer who we think has enough quality to adapt to different systems. Falcao, Lewandowski, Jovetic, Ba, Cavani. Don't really mind as I said As for CBs there are quite a few options. Haven't seen him play on many occasions, but Okore looked quality and is a chelsea fan. Reckon he'd be a good signing I predict it'll be a good window though

I know this which is why I feel we'll need a real top class striker who fits the system in some way. My main point is about jumping on the Danny bandwagon

Yeah and Torres has been inconsistent. Had a good start, but has faded recently. Personally don't think he deserves to be pushed aside because he hasn't been as bad as made out, just been ok. I reckon Robbie will be willing to give Sturridge a chance which is good. I'll reserve judgement and 'Sturridge>Torres' comments till after Sturridge has played some games

Sturridge isn't shit, he just had a shit game. Lets see what else he can do with more game time, hopefully he'll improve and take Nando's place. But all i'm saying is his performance yesterday was like one Torres' bad game and yet people are saying he warrants starting over Torres. For me what Robbie needs to do is make use of both of them and ensure they can both get game time, from that we'll see who truly deserves to start

You've gone completely off the point i'm trying to make. All i'm saying is that had Torres put in the same performance last night it would have been called a poor performance because it was. No need to get defensive about it. It was his first start for a while after a torrid summer and so its to be expected. My only qualm is with the people who have been quick to say 'Danny is already better than Torres' or 'Danny gave a better performance than what Torres has all season' in order to justify hem claiming for weeks that he should be starting over Torres, when in fact he was rubbish last night

Of course they have to be judged the same, judging someone less leniently than another person playing in that same position doesn't make any sense as we should expect a certain standard from a player in that position. Also by your explanation your saying we should not be judging Lampard just on this season but on all of his performances from past seasons? I feel this is also going to go into a Torres debate

It wasn't just you. Was being called awful by majority of opposition fans too.

Every player deserves support because there all playing for the club we love. However it's just a fact that if it had been Torres that had fallen over from that Victor Moses cross, or Torres trying that backheel at the corner flag or Torres shooting from that ridiculous angle then he'd have been absolutely vilified. Don't think there any need to hide because our strikers should be judged the same. Lets hope Danny can get more starts

Guys lets be honest, if Torres had put in that exact same performance that Sturridge did last night, then he would have been taken to cleaners. Sturridge was falling on the ball, making rash decisions, trying unnecessary tricks and shooting was poor. He grew into the game, but he was never more than 5/6 out of 10. There's no point trying to defend him on order to make a point about Torres because the fact it wasn't a good game for him. The least you could say is that his movement was good, but please he was playing against two championship standard CB's and rarely got any joy against them. A lot of improvement is needed. What must be remembered as people have said though is that he has rarely played as a lone striker and needs a run of games in order to get into the swing things, and he should be judged then and not now. Hopefully in his next start he can do more to impress as Torres really needs some worthy competition

Would like this to be the team: Cech Azpi Cahill Ivanovic Cole Ramires Mikel Moses Oscar Hazard Torres Luiz's form has been poor recently and the guy needs a break. Played in the international break then Spurs, Shakhtar, United, United. I also think Robbie will want to play Luiz against Shakhtar and Liverpool too and so we should rest him for this one. This will be a tough game I reckon, they'll be on a high after beating Liverpool yesterday and gave City a right thumping too and should have won. Any sort of win is needed

George Saville and Nathan Ake are in the squad and hoping to make the bench

Would play an extra defender to nullify the threat of Lee Mason

The first point you've raised is a huge assumption. For all we know Torres may have been hoping that Ramires will draw the man(gallas) and then play the ball through to Torres. I also don't get this idea that Torres has become a 'team player', yes he's adapted his game to become an all rounder and more complete player, but ask any striker what there main objective is and this goals. Torres may have just been clever in his movement to allow the space here, but equally when a striker sees someone making a run like Ramires did, 9 times out of 10 there looking to get into a position where they can score a goal. It's just what a striker's mentality is and what it should be like. But anyway we can't be predicting what Torres' intentions were because we don't know. I downloaded the game and just watched Mata's first goal, Torres doesn't jog in in order to collect the 2nd ball at all. Before the cross comes in Mata has the ball and Torres make a run off the last shoulder of the defender in the hope of a through ball which Mata doesn't deliver. Instead it goes to Ivanovic and in that whole period Torres' eyesight is fixed firmly on Ivanovic in the hope of recieving the ball on the edge of the area unmarked. You've completely just gone and given Torres so much credit, he has not intention of looking to win that 2nd ball because if he did his eyes would have been firmly on the defenders in order to judge there positioning so that he could collect that 2nd ball, but the fact is he wasn't. He was looking to receive it from Ivanovic with a low cross in. So i'm not too sure what your trying to prove with those two examples, because there not showing anything. I completely understand the fact about Torres being a well rounded striker and its this reason why i'd prefer to see Neymar join in January rather than Falcao, but in those two examples given and in particular the last one they just as much show Torres wanting to be the goal scorer rather than 'team player' What we're also assuming here is that natural goalscorers don't contribute much to the team. The thing with most natural goalscorers is that they have superb movement, if you have superb movement then your either opening up space for yourself to recieve a pass or your dragging a defender along with you who's trying to shut down the space you've created. This has just as many benefits to the team than a striker making a run to open space for someone like Mata. We shouldn't make the mistake that just because a player is a goalscorer it means there greedy and selfish. This is something that Falcao isn't. He isn't a goalscorer because he's greedy and selfish, but because he's so clinical when the chance is presented to him. 9 times out of 10 he'll finish it. That's what makes him a goalscorer

The 'Next Essien' gets thrown about loads, but this guy really is that. Absolute beast

Btw, it's nice to have a debate on here that hasn't resulted in childish insults being thrown about

Lol Torres was almost as skinny as Oscar mate, http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00878/SNN0121G_280_878912a.jpg And it's not about bossing defenders, its about getting the better of them which is what all the best strikers do and Falcao has done it in portugal, Spain, South America and in european competitions. Falcao gets the better of most defenders because of his movement in and outside of the box which is something you can recreate anywhere and which is why he's been successful everywhere. So this idea about needing to boss defenders isn't correct, as long as you have there number and can outsmart them whether it be movement, pace or strength is what is key And the point about Avb's system is that in order to play in it, your all round play couldn't have been poor as everybody had to contribute. And so what we're looking for our number 8 to give assists? I understand that he needs to link up the play, but you go on about assists when so far this season Torres has managed one assist and that came in the game against Wolves in the COC cup so.........What the striker must do in our supposed system is link the play, score goals and create space for the three behind. Falcao can undoubtedly carry out those last two tasks better than Torres and as I said his link up play is more than up to scratch Also why are you putting so much emphasis on playing with back to goal? Most of the chances we have created this season that Torres has missed has come from clever play with Torres being one on one with the keeper. Being good with your back to goal was definitely necessary in our old system became we used to play long ball tactics but this is no longer the case as demonstrated by the fact that Torres finds himself with so many one on one situations with balls played over the top or through the defence. When Torres recieves the ball with back to goal in this system all that he does is usually either hold it up, or lay to one of the more creative players which is something Falcao is easily capable of doing. More to the point, the only striker we've seen in this team is Torres. We have no idea what type of striker suits it as we've not been able to compare it too anything and there's been no indication what type of striker RDM wants in this type of system. Until we see another striker playing in it, we can't make a judgement on what type of striker is best for it, although we've seen Sturridge play in it who's a different type of a striker to Torres and so far he's performed well in his cameos. If Falcao came here he'd definitely be our best player in terms of attackers, he's 3rd best in the world imo and the best striker out there so that wouldn't be a problem. Anyway,Torres didn't suffer from 'not being the best player', he suffered mentally because of the Drogba factor and the competition he posed him. Falcao's competition would be Torres and Sturridge and he's comfortably better than both

Falcao wouldn't be considered a world class player if he was only good with his feet and head otherwise Huntelaar, Hernandez would be world class too. You have to have more to you game to achieve that sort of status