Las7

CESAR WITH A PERFECT CROSS AND ITS HAZARD!

Again dispossessed ... We need to keep the ball better when we are in their area.

Again good combination - until there is a requirement for Torres to actually be moving in the box instead of remaining flat footed. How many times when there is a pass coming into the box is he at at one stop without even trying to move. Sturridge tried to surprise the goal keeper there but it was a routine save

.... what an inch perfect pass by Torres to WBA defender

Cmon lads!

He turned well only to loose the ball and ask for a foul - typical thus far

Actually towards AVB's time here he compared Torres to Kezman Sheva than Roman promptly booted him out. He made the comments on the 29th of February

No you've said that Sturridge is average without backing up that statement - at the same time you have said " he's still shown more worth then sturridge". As I've said we have given Torres 60 matches to prove himself he has not done that. Sturridge has never been given even a tenth of the chance Torres was given at CFC, he did more than well when he received managerial backing while on loan at Bolton. Scoring against the same keepers and defenders Torres; Drogba and Anelka failed to find the net against. He returned was asked to play in a new position to which his natural game is not suited - a year later he was left as our only alternative to Torres for 6 months. Torres has played 1500 minutes and yet without even giving a chance to Sturridge to play in front of Mata; Hazard and Oscar you have made it clear that Torres has shown more worth than Sturridge some thing I contest - Torres has had two years where he has been worse than Sturridge at CFC. Now we have far more creative players to setup chances for Torres yet he is continuing to show to be untrustworthy. Yet you feel he has done more here that Sturridge sorry but anyone who has watched the two players during their time here will tell you that Torres has not only been a one hell of a monumental transfer fuck up by our board and has done nothing to justify his 60 starts at this club. Sturridge might turn out not quite good enough for Chelsea but currently he is the only alternative - who has waited 3 years for a chance - our management felt he was adequate cover this season and it's about time they put him in the starting line up for a run of games. Unless that happens even if he leaves his failure would be not down to his performance on the pitch - which has been quite good for a player who has never played his preferred position - it's like asking Ramires or Essien to play on our right wing for a season than slating him based on their performances there.

A striker unable to score a goal in 24 hours of competitive play while playing for the side that eventually would go on to win the CL and FA Cup is what I would call an average player. Sturridge might end up being not quite good enough for us, but I plan to actually base such a shift of opinion on game time rather than hyperboles without any substantial statistical backing. Until Sturridge is actually given 2-3 matches in a row leading the line there is very little proof that he would actually do any worse than Torres. And I cannot phantom the fact that you call Sturridge an average player while Torres in his time at CFC has been far below average as his statistics demonstrate. Torres has had ample time to turn things around he started about 30 matches; coming in as a substitute in 17 matches last year as Central Forward. He Started 14 matches as a central forward when he first arrived here under Carlo. He has started all our games bar one this season. So that's around 60 matches as a starter at our club in his favorite position. I would like you to take a look how many games Sturridge HAS STARTED as a CF at Chelsea. I doubt there would be even more than 10 - yet Sturridge is proven to be an average striker despite doing extremely well when given the chance at Bolton while Torres is has had 60 matches where its possible to pinpoint about 5 where he was at the expected level which is not far better than Sturridge's best while at Bolton.

Judging Sturridge on the last 3 years, he is a far more dangerous and clinical player than Torres. I don't know what is the average player that you are referring to, but in terms of pure goal scoring - Sturridge has been better at putting the ball in the back of the net than Torres. He had a goal for every 209 minutes he was on the field last season, from the wing. The season before that he had played a total of 1521 minutes(both Bolton and Chelsea) so nearly the same amount of time Torres has played so far this season - and had scored a total of 12 goals - which translates to a goal per 126 minutes. Compare that to Torres's time this season and his goal for every 217 minutes in games where he plays for 90 minutes in front of the two most creative players in the League. Also consider when he was playing at CFC 2 years ago Sturridge was a substitute in most of his games and only at Bolton was he given a fair crack up top. I'm tired of your bullcrap posts. Either come up with statistics or reasons to back up your arguments or don't make one liners just to troll this forum

SeB Torres doesn't move inside the box. He is the most static striker in the League when it comes to movement inside the box. His movement is distinctly outside the box. Even at Liverpool his movement inside the box during open play was appalling he still wanted the ball into his feet inside the box - difference is that he had the capability to get a shot off. At Chelsea he is still waiting for the ball into his feet inside the box - but this will not happen because we face teams which won't allow that type of space and he no longer is able to eliminate defenders like he used to with nutmegs and acceleration. Adapting to 4 different tactics is something you would say about someone who actually manages to play well in 4 different systems - fact is that Torres has been really effective in two systems and those two systems relied on skills and confidence he no longer possesses and both those two systems were contrived by Benitez to get the best out of him and Gerrard. But both those systems relied upon Torres's speed; acceleration and confidence - while what we received is a hesitant striker who is moaning about our tactical setups rather than doing his part in them. Whether you feel that the fee is immaterial for his overall performance is another matter - to me if a player demands to be the top payed player at a club and an automatic starter there are expectations bestowed upon him which are far greater than a guy like Kalou who is making one third of his wages. Fact is Kalou played decently in a variety of systems without ever being thrust into an automatic starting position. Torres placed the pressure upon himself by negotiating such a wage and forcing himself out of Liverpool - so it's not something we can blame entirely on our management. Three managers have had the opportunity to install confidence into Torres and systems and tactics are an excuse which is getting tiring if you are truely a World Class player you need to step up in a variety of setups and systems. Berbatov for example never really hit it off in United's system which relied on his direct compatitor Rooney far too much - but still Berba managed to have a far better overall impact on that squad than Torres. Anelka only really had half a season at our Club in a system that truly suited him - he still managed to make himself an overall good signing for his time here. Sheva tried to adapt his game while he was at CFC and despite never working out for him - he still managed to do better than Torres. There are countless examples and your comments are just miss directed - we have had 2 years with Torres at the club and patience has ran out for the majority of us.

That is no excuse for the most expensive and highest paid player to be so ineffectual at doing what he was bough for - simple as that it's simply an excuse for him not living up to his old capabilities. I would not say that the team was as bad as Torres, this is the same team which won the CL and FA Cup last season while Torres performed like a Conference Level Journeymen striker.

Lets look at our upcoming Schedule: West Brom v Chelsea Sat 17 Nov Juventus v Chelsea Tue 20 Nov Chelsea v Man City Sun 25 Nov Chelsea v Fulham Wed 28 Nov West Ham v Chelsea Sat 1 Dec Chelsea v FC Nordsjaelland Wed 5 Dec Sunderland v Chelsea Sat 8 Dec Two matches in the CWC in Japan between the Sunderland and Leeds matches... Leeds United v Chelsea Wed 19 Dec Chelsea v Aston Villa Sun 23 Dec Norwich v Chelsea Wed 26 Dec Everton v Chelsea Sun 30 Dec Chelsea v QPR Wed 2 Jan That's will probably be 14 matches in around 40 days!

He went 24 hours without a goal last season, I don't care if we were pumping the ball at 200 miles an hour - that type performance would only be alright for a striker in the Conference League.

The thing is there is a difference between giving them time and over playing them. I feel especially Hazard is a player who does very well if he is 100% fit - being rested for our biggest fixtures will make him unplayable. These players aren't build like tanks even a guy like Messi doesn't play as often as it appears. Got to keep your best players playing at their maximum and with this type of schedule - it will be impossible if we continue on the same route. Very soon it would make them all ineffectual at the 60 minute mark and their substitutes will be out of sort and struggling out there because of lack of playing time. There are reasons to excuse RdM obviously new players needing to gel, but what we are doing is not going to be very helpful in the long run. Especially substitutions need to come on a lot earlier - and certain features the three amigos will need to be rotated out of the side. The other factor being our Champions League group which won't allow us any opportunity to relax - the way United have coasted through their group. Our Champions League group is probably 2nd hardest out of the lot, but that's mainly due to how well Donetsk are playing. Juve being obviously a tough opponent but they don't have the luxury of resting their entire squad before a fixture I don't have to remind you what we did in the CL last season and the reason why we finished so far down the table last season. But even when you factor in these two reasons it's still perplexing why we are playing our players so much, they can build up chemistry without playing together every 3 days. While the minutes Torres has gotten are mindboggling.

I don't want to say an obvious fact, but experience is gained by playing. Besides guys like Marin; Danny and Moses aren't exactly inexperienced - the only player who I'd say really is devoid of experience is Piazon. Either way this should have been a transitional season but to give ourselves the best chance to stay in touch with our rivals we need to involve our reserves a lot more. Daniel and Moses are the obvious candidates - Marin if he stays fit should start playing; RdM's weaknesses are he barely gives our bench a look in. We should be bringing in guys like Marin; Studge and Moses around the 60th minute not with 10 minutes left on the clock.

Are we running our attack into the ground? It's a good question, we have a few lightweight wizards playing for the club - we know what the Three Amigos are able to do together on the field but are we running them into the Ground. Recently in the Carling Cup we gave time to our Reserve team but reverted to the three amigos to get the result we were looking for. RdM wanted to shift the focus off our controversial game against United onto the Carling Cup. We won the duel but was this match actually showing our short comings. We saw Piazon for the second time this season and granted he was not particularly effective either defensively or offensively since that match he has only been in the match day squad once. The expectations might be a little too high for the lad, surely he is not at the level of Mata and Hazard but that doesn't mean he should not get any minutes this season as a substitute for either of these players. Moses has proved us with key goals from set pieces since that game, but yet again since the Carling Cup match he is not used from the start in any of our fixtures giving a rest to either Mata or Hazard. Oriol Romeu's brief two game stint lead to questions about what we will do when Mikel is gone for the ANC. Marin and Sturridge have not had a rub of the green either. Now these players might not be good enough in the long run to displace the three amigos; Mikel and Torres but that does not mean we should continue overexerting our midfield. There are two reasons for this. The Fatigue: We all know Mata and Sturridge were two of our best players in the first half of last season - yet Sturridge went off the boil towards Christmas and was used sparsely since RdM's arrival; while Mata's constant brilliance was subdued. A lot of the reason is due to fatigue you need to figure out which games you can afford not to play your strongest 11 from the start allowing especially players who are more inclined to physically get worn off a bit of time to recuperate. We can also pinpoint mental fatigue as another reason, at a particular time when you are in a position at your work to be required to give 100% of the time due at a certain time there would be a bit of difficult to mentaly to prepare yourself for this every match and sometimes you would go off the boil - Torres is a perfect example of this, whether he is too tired to run or mentally exhausted during the second half in the last 4 matches he was a shadow. Lack of Match Practice: Worse case scenario Mata or Hazard get injured, we need to bring in Moses; Marin or Piazon but due to their lack of match practice these players are no where near ready to actually play a full game. We end up using Ramires on the wing , because RdM decides that Marin and Piazon are unproven and Ramires has played that position before and has match practice. We end up destabilizing our unstable midfield further more and Ramires suffers on the wing because that's not a position in which he can be used when we are trying to break down defensive teams. What other teams do: Whether other top squads around the continent have a deeper squad is a matter of interpretation. I'm sure there is at least 10-15 teams that bolster better strikers than us, but in terms of overall width within the squad - it's a matter of utilization within the setup of what's available rather than the overall quality of the width a club might have. A good example of this is the use of O'Shea; Gibson at United or Johnson; Sinclair at City. These players might not be able to displace the first choice players in the squad but they provide an opportunity for the squad to be rotated. Lets take a closer look at the amount of time attacking players have spend on the field(I won't take into account players who are mostly in central midfield): Chelsea: Mata - 1275 minutes Hazard - 1402 minutes Oscar - 1016 minutes Torres - 1561 minutes( ECS against City included) Moses - 447 minutes Sturridge - 235 minutes Piazon - 55 minutes Marin - n/a United(2 strikers): RvP - 1135 minutes Valencia - 912 minutes Rooney - 917 minutes Welbeck - 809 minutes Cleverley - 740 minutes Nani - 683 minutes Hernandez - 641 minutes Kagawa - 573 minutes Young - 363 minutes City(2 strikers): Tevez - 1189 minutes Nasri - 964 minutes Aguero - 810 minutes Silva - 766 minutes Dzeko - 632 minutes Mario - 589 minutes Milner - 455 minutes Sinclair - 160 minutes I could pull out the statistics for other major clubs in Europe but the situation would be similar, by utilizing our best players so much we will render them ineffective. It's time some rotation is utilized otherwise we face the prospect of our best players burning out in the most crucial stages of the season. It's a worrying development, we have 2 matches coming up in the WCC - where we will travel to Japan in order to test ourselves against Corinthians; Ulsan; Monterrey; Auckland City etc than we have to take into consideration that the hectic Christmas; New Years schedule is also coming up and if you don't see the rot at the moment it will become very clear around New Year. RdM needs to start introducing our alternatives in a lot more games if we are serious about our goals this season.

Give Sturridge a crack for a few matches in row before the Transfer window. Unlike Torres, Sturridge actually has a reason to be unhappy, he has waited 3 years for a chance to play 2 games in a row in his favourite position - the position he has trained for his entire life. He went out on loan to Bolton to prove himself good enough for a shot at playing up top for us. He outscored our combined strike force in the second part of the season - returned still wasn't given a fair crack as CF even as Torres went 24 hours without a goal and Drogba was out at ANC and was not playing any better than Torres in the League. This season he has had ONE match up top for us from the start, he didn't play particularly well but got us a goal - give him a few more matches, see how he does and if he doesn't do any better we can think about who is available for us to sign in the winter.

Yep I hope we send him to Liverpool or Tottenham just to ensure their unsuccessful attempts at Qualifying for the CL continue

We need to play Sturridge; Moses; Romeu; Lamps and Marin - they need games, soon we are going to be playing every 3 days and we need to be sure that all of our squad is physically and mentally prepared for a period of time in which rotation will be key. The fact that we have not been utilizing our full rooster will be our downfall in the long run - we saw it last season as Sturridge and Mata burned out during the Christmas period after playing around 25 games before Christmas. The only player who I feel comfortable to have in the tank to play such a schedule at the moment is Ramires. Also RdM needs to stop with the reactionary subs, he needs to do things like SAF and Jose - when something is not working out(we are not killing off games), make a sub at half time - make it clear to the squad that you expect more in the second straight away rather than waiting for the opposition to equalize before you try to change things up. Keep players on their toes. Hopefully we get a clean bill of health after the internationals.

He has played once as a striker from the start this season, other times he has had been brought on in matches when we are chasing a result and he barely gets a touch to the ball. 220 minutes of football - is not enough time for anyone to make a judgement. Played on the wing: Reading - 23 minutes Tottenham - 10 minutes Swansea - 18 minutes Played as a striker: Manchester United(CC) - 120 minutes Manchester United - 10 minutes(while we were down to 9 chasing a result) QPR - 10 minutes(chasing a result at 0-0) Donetsk(A) - 21 minutes(was part of our consolation goal; setup a one on one chance for Hazard) Donestk(H) - 1 minute Liverpool - 9 minutes Give him 2-3 starts in a row and it would be fare to say he is not good enough. What did he say, the interview is not working for me

As was the case today and on many other occasions he looses the ball too often. His passing accuracy of around 70% and constantly either getting dispossessed or passes leading to turnovers. Link up play is the thing that's being exaggerated about Torres. You can't loose the ball over 50% of the time you get a pass in a match(like tonight) and than harp on about link up play. He might be leaving, doesn't mean that until he does we should not use him - you don't rate him fair enough. But Torres is worse goal scorer than Sturridge and at the moment we need someone up top to finish up chances setup by our midfield. Torres is on the wing; deep in midfield; or simply not busting a gut standing in one spot instead of trying to actually score far too often. Right now points are key - we should concentrate on winning games rather than who is going to be sold and who is our main striker. Torres has not done enough to be one and hence he should be dropped for a few games till we test alternatives.

Torres has not been good enough, Sturridge has outscored him 2 seasons in a row it's about time he is played instead of Torres. Simple as that. If he is also awful it won't hurt us anymore than Torres at the moment. Obviously Torres is not good enough to be our lone striker so there is nothing to loose anymore

That doesn't explain how virtually any other team rotates their strikers as much as possible but only us and Liverpool play Torres/Suarez every game. Sturridge has had 220 minutes on the field Torres 1550 minutes. Pretty much Torres is playing till he comes good and it's starting to cost us. At the very least we can do now is give Sturridge a few games in a row up top both for him and Torres's good - the more Torres is playing the worse he gets. No surprise he has been completely ineffectual in the second half in the last 3-4 games we have played. Hernandez has played 700 minutes for MU while Dzeko has played 600 minutes for City. Only player in a similar situation is Adebayor. Who has had 300 minutes at Spurs. But he has Zero goals - Sturridge at least got a few goals for us. Didn't stop AVB starting him tonight ahead of Defoe

Torres tonight: "He touched the ball 42 times today, 26 of them directly resulted in a turnover, goal kick, or opponents throw." Sturridge had 3 touches in 10 minutes while we were chasing a result - yet he is piss and Torres is unlucky