TorontoChelsea

I get your point which is that if Torres does well, he'll be worth it. You're wrong though. He'll never be worth what we paid for him.

No. You're missing the picture entirely here. There are two aspects to judge whether a player is worth what was paid. 1) Results. Torres has to be a 50M pounds striker and be worth 175K/week every single year just to be worth his value. What is that? Probably around 25-30 league goals including carrying the team on his back. He has to be the best striker in the Premier League. Considering that Torres was actually one of the worst strikers in the Premier League last season and a half, he has to actually be significantly better than a 50M striker over the remainder of his Chelsea career to reach even value. 2) Could you have got someone as good or better for the same price and cheaper. The answer is always going to be yes. Chelsea could have bought better strikers for much less. Aguero cost 12M pounds less than Torres for example. So, no matter what Torres does, we could have have got someone better for cheaper. So, even if Torres goes on and scores consistently for us and we win trophies, would we have had the same success with someone like Aguero or Falcao? Certainly. So, Torres, even if he scores regularly will not be worth what we paid for him. (And nothing sells shirts like winning. Chelsea became a big club because of their success, not because of Torres.)

Because he cost 50M pounds. He is never going to be worth that and since he has been horrible for us for a 1.5 years, he needs to be basically Ronaldo for about 4 years in order to make the signing decent value and that's never going to happen. You can't judge the value of signing and discard cost. I think the 50M fee should not be talked about any more, because there's no point. He'll never be worth that, he was never going to be worth it. We need to move on.

After the game?? It will be the same discussion every 10 seconds. ("You can see his confidence is back by the way he wants the ball", etc...)

He'll never be worth 50M, because he was never worth it in the first place. In order to say "he was worth it", he not only has to play at the level of what a 50M striker was when he was bought ( top-5 striker in the world) but he has to be much better than anyone else we could have got for equal or less money (Aguero, Cavani, Falcao, or really any other striker in the world) and that's just not going to happen. Also, five years of 20 goals? Torres is 28 and has scored 16 league goals over his last two seasons. I'd be ecstatic if he has two years where he is a top striker for us. But, as I said earlier, the 50M price-tag is not an issue any more as far as I'm concerned. The issue is "is Torres good enough to be out #1 striker?"

No. Torres will never be a good signing no matter what, but he doesn't need to justify his being bought.for 50M pounds. If he scores 25-30 goals and wins us a bunch of games by himself, he'll justify his spot as our number one striker which is all he needs to worry about.

This is something I've noticed that's very common among many supporters of all teams. It's a combination of things 1) Either overrating or underrating players based on such small sample sizes that it sometime boils down to single plays ("horrible pass, he needs to go now" etc...) when of course even great players have bad stretches and even poor players can look good for a while. 2) Seeing players in a very black and white way. Players are either great or awful and every game just confirms this bias. Even the best players miss opportunities, make bad decisions, and so on.

Jesus...calm down people. This is a meaningless pre-season match. Pre-season is about building fitness and familiarity with other players. People expect way too much and are therefore disappointed over complete nonsense.

I'm getting sick of this "class is permanent" stuff. It just makes no sense because it implies that everyone who was ever good will always remain good which is obviously nonsense. We should get Beckenbauer, right? I mean, if class is permanent, who cares that he's 67. Pele is 72, but one of the all-time greats so therefore he must still be "class". Nothing is permanent and every player declines. Being good a few years ago is no guarantee of being good in the future. And yes, Drogba did have some poor seasons with us but it was always when he was replaced as a starting striker and was starting 15-20 Premier League games a season. Drogba never had a season remotely as bad as Torres had this past year and a half. 29 games without a goal is not bad, it's historically awful.

But that's an insane waste of money. Essien and Meireles will likely play reduced roles this season anyway, so you're essentially spending 30M pounds to cover 15 starts or something. And that's assuming that none of the youngsters stay at Chelsea. And Chelsea would have spent about 100M pounds in one transfer period only on attacking midfielders. I know people want to buy every single young player they like, but it's ridiculous.

Yes, let's spend 100M pounds on midfielders. Where would Lucas play? We have Oscar, Lampard, Marin, Mata, Hazard, Meireles, Ramires, Mikel, Essien, and Romeu (not to mention Malouda, Benayoun, KDB, Piazon, McEachran, and Kakuta). At this point, buying another midfielder is just taking time away from someone else who deserves playing time. And Kagawa was primarily a central attacking midfielder with Dortmund. I assume that's where he'll play for United.

Agree. City had much more talent than United last season and were much healthier and they still finished even on points. I think the goal this season should be a CL Spot and to be competitive in all competitions while transitioning successfully into the new style that Roman wants. If we win something, obviously that's even better.

I've never said otherwise but there is a difference between "it's best for everyone if Malouda moves on" and the ridiculous disrespect he gets on here.

Not only that, but Malouda scored 45 goals for Chelsea. He was our player of the season in 2009-2010. He led us in goals in 2010-2011. Have some humanity but also show some respect for what the man accomplished for Chelsea.

This should be on the top of every single pre-season thread. Managers repeatedly say the same thing-these games are about building fitness and having a look at some of the younger players. Whether or not Mikel or Hazard or Cole have a good 45 minutes or not is meaningless.

And Kane. This will be like the last game-just getting guys up to a decent fitness level and getting them playing together.

Torres was one of the best strikers in the world 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 (Last time he was PFA team of the year). We're going into the 2012-2013 season. He wasn't particularly good with Liverpool before we signed him so he's been bad for 2 consecutive years. He might come good, but he might not and I am almost positive that his days as a world-class player are over. It's not just a lack of form, it's a lack of class as he is consistently knocked off the ball by mediocre defenders. It hasn't just been the misses, it's been an overall lack of quality in finishing and positioning.. He might come good with excellent service, but if it takes excellent service for him to score, he's not a particularly good striker. World-class strikers need to create some of their own chances and need to turn half chances into goals. I am not pushing for Cavani per se although I think he's a fantastic striker, I am just baffled by Chelsea spending enormous amounts of money to fix one of our two biggest problems and zero money to fix the other one.

What's stopping Cavani from having a similar record? Quality. It's crazy to spend as much as we spend and build massive depth in midfield only to rely on a striker who has been awful for a year and a half. Yes, he might come good, but what if he doesn't?

Drogba first season saw him score 10 goals in 26 Premier league matches with Chelsea and that was with having a serious muscle pull that kept him out of action or two months and he was still considered a disappointment. Torres has scored 7 goals in 46 Premier League matches for Chelsea. A massive difference.

It's a combination of things and different players put different emphasis on different priorities (just like other people.) Players' priorities also change. As they get married and have families, they often want to move closer to their homes and be in a place where there are good schools and stability for their families. That isn't a factor at all for a single 21-year old.For most players money and the opportunity to play at the highest level are the two biggest factors I also think too many people expect players to have club loyalty.I don't really think it's any more likely than us having loyalty to our workplaces. If a new job comes along and offers us double the pay and a better opportunity, how many of us would turn it down?

It's hard to evolve when you're not playing. Right now, he's our third string striker which is the same role he had last year. The choice is either for Lukaku to develop on another team on loan or to play a handful of games at Chelsea. I am almost certain Lukaku will go on loan which is the best thing for him and for us.

Cavani is similar to Torres except better in every way. There is really nothing Cavani doesn't do well. He's also a lot more willing to mix it up physically that Torres. And Lukaku right now is not at the level he can play for Chelsea. Scoring a couple of goals in a meaningless pre-season match doesn't change that. He needs to go out on loan and play regularly somewhere.

There is no correlation. McEachran was our best player last pre-season and he had a lost season. Malouda played well in the pre-season and he was probably our worst player during the year. Mata was our best player and didn't even play in pre-season. The leading scorer for Man City in last' year's World Football Challenge was Wright-Phillips. Fredrico Mechada had two goals for ManU. It just doesn't mean anything. When people say "so and so had a good or bad game" that's normal and fine, it's the making generalizations on the overall quality of a player based on pre-season matches which is ridiculous.

Fun first half and good to see the lads get their running in, but the overreactions to individual performances are insane. Pre-season matches are all about fitness, the games themselves are meaningless and players' individual performances are pretty close to that. There is no correlation between pre-season performance and in-season performance. Judging a player's quality based on 45 minutes in a pre-season match is ridiculous. You need at least 5-10 matches into the season before you can really start to form a decent first impression of a player and even that is premature. The games are interesting to watch to try to see what kind of qualities new players might bring and because we're all excited to see Chelsea again.

First of all, it was us that let him go to Arsenal. What should he have done? Refused? How can you possibly be angry at a player for going out on loan? And the "shite so far?" Give me a break. 25 minutes in and he's been fine. Had a great give and go with Marin and hasn't done anything wrong. Haters need to hate and without Kalou and Malouda around it seems Benayoun is the new guy to go after. When he is (likely) sold, wonder who it will be next.