He should have gotten two penalties yesterday, one of them created all by himself. If he would have gotten them (or just one penalty and one clear 1 on 1 against the keeper, a chance he would have scored on), would you criticize him then? It's funny how people scream after Drogba, one match into the season. Yes, he is the best player I've ever seen in a Chelsa-shirt (since the FA-cup final 1970), and possibly the only player we've ever had who's been the best in the world at some point in his career, but there is a certain amount of goldfish memory tied to him and his week in and week out-performances for our team. Drogba has missed more sitters for us than Torres will ever do, and he spent the first 18 months at our club diving and whining about signing for the royal blues. So what do we expect of our striker? I've witnessed Osgood, Dixon and later Drogba playing for this club, all great players. However, people are living on a big and starry cloud of how good they were and how bad our other strikers have been. Yes, Torres hasn't performed anyway near his potential and not nearly good enough, but I find it amusing that people are jumping on the players backs after one proper match, a match were we played well below par after the first 15 minutes. You say that we need a striker who can create his own chances, and that's fine. If you have the replay of the first goal you might want to take a look at it, because Torres played a role in that goal. When Hazard shook off Ramis, you could see that Torres drags one of Wigan's centre backs away from Ivanovic. Not much, but certainly enough to give the slightly stumbling Serbian more time to compose himself. Football is a team sport, and as much as the striker is supposed to score goals, he is also responsible for playing his team mates better. Torres is arguably a clever player, and what he does very well (also pointed out by The Butch on the Norwegian broadcast of the game) is that he stretches the opposite team vertically. That means that even if he doesn't get the ball (at times where he should get the ball), he makes space for Mata and Hazard who loves to work in that well known "hole". Torres has got to prove himself regularly for us, but the fans should also judge a player on his actual performance, not just reading the highlights from goal.com. Nando's performance yesterday didn't make me think that he would flop again, he had one bad first half and a good second half. Reminds me of all the strikers in the world, really... As for the raitings, I would give the MOTM to JT. I thought everyone played mediocre, like a 6/10, but Hazard and JT were a notch over the rest. Whilst Hazard faded after 15 minutes, JT stood up like the captain he is and saved us in the important first match of the season.
