Romelu Lukaku

[MetsajCFC 1,255]

No strike force consisting of Torres is lethal

He's been the best player for us past couple of games - and doing that while getting all that crap from supporters, having the media on him and so on. In that perspective the situation is easier for Lukaku.

[MetsajCFC 1,255]

I feel insulted by people saying that it's more difficult to score for us than Everton or Westbrom, making it sound like it's an easy thing for a player to score at those teams despite the fact that other than Benteke; Lukaku and Sturridge over the last 2 years there has been not a single young striker at any of the lesser clubs in the EPL scoring loads of goals. Simply put Lukaku; Sturridge and Benteke are the best young strikers in the League and can easily be compared with the top dogs(RvP; Rooney; Kun; etc).

The problem stems that CFC doesn't trust youth and prefers to flog a dead horse as opposed to actually giving Lukaku some game time.

It's not about the competition for places that makes it harder to score for Chelsea. It's the fact that teams defend with 10 behind the ball when playing against us, and with only one striker up front he can not afford any mistakes. Simple as that. Please try to have more perspective.

[Las7 951]

He's been the best player for us past couple of games - and doing that while getting all that crap from supporters, having the media on him and so on. In that perspective the situation is easier for Lukaku.

You do realize Torres has been here for 34 months ?

Lukaku had two sub appearances and people wrote him off - load of spastic comments, there is a reason I dislike Torres, because he represents everything wrong at the club and gets selected not based on form but based on how much we paid and how much he is earning. Otherwise he would have long lost his place in the Team to the likes of Sturridge and Lukaku.

It's not about the competition for places that makes it harder to score for Chelsea. It's the fact that teams defend with 10 behind the ball when playing against us, and with only one striker up front he can not afford any mistakes. Simple as that. Please try to have more perspective.

You try to have a little perspective, we have one of the best young strikers in the League and instead of playing an inform player we play Torres who has 1 GOAL in the EPL for the Calendar year thus far, and a semi retired player from Russia who might or might not be an upgrade over a player who has scored 1 GOAL in the EPL for the Calendar year thus far. It might be easier to score at Everton or Westbrom but it should not be as difficult as it's proving for Torres to score in the EPL at Chelsea. United/City/Arsenal also face teams that pack their own area doesn't mean that their strikers score 1 goal every 8 months in the League.

Torres has 1 goal for the last 1358 minutes on the field for Chelsea Football Club in the EPL, Lukaku scores a goal ever 100 minutes - even if he scores less at CFC I don't see how he could not improve over Torres's pathetic record.

Torres has played a total of 4721 minutes for CFC in the EPL since arriving scoring a goal ever 314.74 minutes that's worse than a 1/3 record, spanning over 3 seasons. So please when you talk about the crap Torres is getting by supporters ask yourself what he was signed for, take a look at Berbatov's record at United a player who was deemed not good enough for them and they went on to sign RvP - Berbatov's record at United blows Torres out of the water. With his record in the EPL wit us Torres would be lucky to be playing in a mid level EPL club and would only be a first choice striker at a relegation threatened team. Arsenal would have bitten our hand if we offered them Lukaku on loan, they'd probably laugh and ask if we are joking if we offered Torres.

[MetsajCFC 1,255]

You do realize Torres has been here for 34 months ?

Lukaku had two sub appearances and people wrote him off - load of spastic comments, there is a reason I dislike Torres, because he represents everything wrong at the club and gets selected not based on form but based on how much we paid and how much he is earning. Otherwise he would have long lost his place in the Team to the likes of Sturridge and Lukaku.

You try to have a little perspective, we have one of the best young strikers in the League and instead of playing an inform player we play Torres who has 1 GOAL in the EPL for the Calendar year thus far, and a semi retired player from Russia who might or might not be an upgrade over a player who has scored 1 GOAL in the EPL for the Calendar year thus far. It might be easier to score at Everton or Westbrom but it should not be as difficult as it's proving for Torres to score in the EPL at Chelsea. United/City/Arsenal also face teams that pack their own area doesn't mean that their strikers score 1 goal every 8 months in the League.

Torres has 1 goal for the last 1358 minutes on the field for Chelsea Football Club in the EPL, Lukaku scores a goal ever 100 minutes - even if he scores less at CFC I don't see how he could not improve over Torres's pathetic record.

When we signed Torres, for most people it seemed like a great signing, there was lots of excitement and hope around. It didn't work out, no way of predicting that. But you need to keep in mind it was a major investment, contracts were signed. And those contracts aren't that easy nor cheap to terminate. But that's just a guess, there's no way of knowing the full story behind this as supporters. Fact of the matter is that there are players in Chelsea blue who get credit for anything they do, while their mistakes are overlooked, and there are players who keep getting criticized no matter how good or bad they do. Same story goes about Benitez situation. He did great giving the atmosphere around him. His achievements can not be downgraded. Statistics do not always show the full picture, just bunch of numbers. It's not only the strikers for Chelsea that do not score, Chelsea as a team can't score at the moment. It's clear radical changes were made internally when Mourinho was appointed so it's unfair to judge the team based on what? - 6 games?

The Premier League isn't the only competition we're in. Torres scored 22 goals, 7 assists last season for Chelsea, not bad for a flop!

You think I wouldn't like to see Lukaku play for us? Of course! But the club, might seem the other way around, put Lukaku's interest before their own. They knew a 20 year old will hit a rocky patch of form at some point - might it be after 2 games, after 10 games, and will lose his positiong to another striker. Everton was the perfect club for him to go to, and it shows with the performances he has been producing the past couple of games for them. He can afford to make mistakes and still have better shot at getting games than in Chelsea, which is normal. We should be happy Chelsea striker is doing great and offers promise for us the seasons ahead. Football is a business not a charity...

[bushman 2,043]

Yesterday, I even read one of the funniest postings about Lukaku. here. According to the fossil Lukaku is not ready yet.

Are we not watching Lukaku or are we just blind ?

To loan Lukaku was the biggest, the most dimwitted decision made by Jose, I feel.

[ChelseasMessiah 304]

As I have said before, let the lad play and develop. He's gonna be a beast.

[Tomo 21,681]

Spot on, when you are 6 games into the season your forwards have scored fewer goals than Mikel serious questions need to be asked.

We still have the biggest flop of English football playing regularly for us and a semi retired Eto'o - Ba is only here because we don't want to strengthen Arsenal

How is he semi retired? because he played in the Russian League? it may not be the PL but it is still a strong league with good teams in it, as teams in "strong league's" have found out on more than one occasion.

[The only place to be 11,313]

As I have said before, let the lad play and develop. He's gonna be a beast.

I would have been quite happy to see this lad start for us. It would have been bumpy but he's got undoubted quality and I actually think the supporters would have gotten behind him. The club needs to have the courage to throw the young players in sometimes rather than waiting for them to reach this mythical stage of being 'ready' to start.

How is he semi retired? because he played in the Russian League? it may not be the PL but it is still a strong league with good teams in it, as teams in "strong league's" have found out on more than one occasion.

No, it's a sub-standard dog shit league where the only attraction is money. Eto'o took a last big payday (until we came along) which is perfectly fine from his perspective but pretty shit from our perspective because he's clearly some way off the pace at the moment. He still has those striker's instincts but it's acting on them that seems to be the problem at the moment.

The main appeal of Eto'o seems to be that he's still a 'name' whereas Lukaku isn't. But gotta sell those t-shirts right?

[Tomo 21,681]

No, it's a sub-standard dog shit league where the only attraction is money. Eto'o took a last big payday (until we came along) which is perfectly fine from his perspective but pretty shit from our perspective because he's clearly some way off the pace at the moment. He still has those striker's instincts but it's acting on them that seems to be the problem at the moment.

So if we signed Witsel would you have the same reservation's?

Like i said it may not be the PL but at the same time it's not the Bulgarian League either. If it's as bad as you say why did the likes of Rubin Kazan get 4 points off Barca in the group (and fully deserve too btw)? Why did CSKA Moscow outplay United at Old Trafford? Why did the same team get 4/6 against Arsenal and get to the quarter final? Why did Zenit romp the Europa league smashing Bayern Munich (who were at the time walking the Bundesliga) 5-1 on the way? There is many more example's of Russian teams coming into the CL/EL and matching the "big boys" but im too lazy to check for more examples right now.

[The only place to be 11,313]

So if we signed Witsel would you have the same reservation's?

To a certain extent. He's not a 30+ year old whose pace was key to his success who has been playing some of his football in a deeper role.

Like i said it may not be the PL but at the same time it's not the Bulgarian League either. If it's as bad as you say why did the likes of Rubin Kazan get 4 points off Barca in the group (and fully deserve too btw)? Why did CSKA Moscow outplay United at Old Trafford? Why did the same team get 4/6 against Arsenal and get to the quarter final? Why did Zenit romp the Europa league smashing Bayern Munich (who were at the time walking the Bundesliga) 5-1 on the way? There is many more example's of Russian teams coming into the CL/EL and matching the "big boys" but im too lazy to check for more examples right now.

Basel beat us last week....Is the Swiss league now not dogshit? They also qualified ahead of Man United a couple of seasons ago.

Results like that are aberrations. Unfortunately, so are 30 year olds coming out of semi-retirement and rediscovering form.

[Tomo 21,681]

To a certain extent. He's not a 30+ year old whose pace was key to his success who has been playing some of his football in a deeper role.

Basel beat us last week....Is the Swiss league now not dogshit? They also qualified ahead of Man United a couple of seasons ago.

Results like that are aberrations. Unfortunately, so are 30 year olds coming out of semi-retirement and rediscovering form.

Fair enough (regarding Witsel/Eto'o).

At the same time how often to we get teams from Bulgaria, Austria or Hungary upsetting the big teams? i can't recall it ever happening, that would be the 'dog shit' league's, those countries have the type of teams we would play in qualifiers and group games and would win comfortably 29 times out of 30.

The Swiss league only really has Basle that would give the top teams a game (or St Gallen aswell in our case ) in the Russian league there's the Moscow clubs, Zenit, Anzhi and Rubin who could and have given the big boys tough games on more than one occasion.

[bushman 2,043]

The heading tells me Lukaku is the name & he is out on loan, needlessly.

[The Skipper 20,593]

Arsenal give their talent chances and they have proved themselves. Look at Gnabry. They have a lot of injuries but once they give youngsters a chance they take it.

You said it yourself.

Arsenal are only playing Gnabry because they have no other option there. Walcott, Cazorla, Podolski, Oxlade, Rosicky are all out. Arsenal's squad is injury ravaged, and that's the only reason Gnabry is playing. Not because Wenger wanted to give his talents a chance.

[1chelsea 864]

Did he just tell Jose to call him after he scored the first goal but really it true he still can't handle been a top striker here IMO but Jose did him good so he can play matches there good for him

[Las7 951]

1) But you need to keep in mind it was a major investment, contracts were signed. And those contracts aren't that easy nor cheap to terminate.

2) It's not only the strikers for Chelsea that do not score, Chelsea as a team can't score at the moment. It's clear radical changes were made internally when Mourinho was appointed so it's unfair to judge the team based on what? - 6 games?

3) The Premier League isn't the only competition we're in. Torres scored 22 goals, 7 assists last season for Chelsea, not bad for a flop!

4) They knew a 20 year old will hit a rocky patch of form at some point - might it be after 2 games, after 10 games, and will lose his positiong to another striker.

I will not address the rest of your post because it's opinions but lets concentrate on a few points

1) Sheva was a big investment, loaned and gave him out for free. He had shown far more promise in his first year than Torres did in his first year. Sheva never had the type of backing Torres did, we never build a side around and we never bothered to try and come up with elaborate excuses for him. Simply put he was too old to addapt and there was no upward curve for him. For two and half years Torres has done very little do adapt to CFC, we had to adapt to him and his fans came up with elaborate excuses for his poor form. If we had spend 2 and a half years adapting to any other striker including Sheva they would have had at the very least similar results even Kezman could have turned out better.

2) How many times has Torres bailed us out with a bit of magic, fashioning a goal for himself the way top strikers do on regular occasions you can't seriously tell me that if you take out RvP; Kun; Zlatan; Cavani; etc out of their current teams those teams won't find it difficult to replace those magic moments. They play in big clubs where opposition also parks the bus and doesn't allow them too much space. In two years Torres has probably had 2-3 such goals, where he virtually scored out of nothing a good example is his Newcastle goal - the players I mentioned above score such goals once a month at the very minimum while constantly also getting on the end of easier chances it's what makes them top players. Torres's movement inside the box is pathetic so he rarely gets normal striker goals, his match winning out put is dwarfed by a 22 year old Brazilian who has scored more goals out of thin air than Torres has done in two and half years and I'd venture to say that probably in the EPL and CL Oscar has more match changing goals than Torres as well. Lukaku has already proven to be a consistent match winner in the toughest league in the World, he might not provide moments of magic yet consistently but in due time that will happen as well.

3) Lets break those awesome 20 goals down:

EPL: Newcastle(16th); Reading(relegated); Arsenal*; Norwich City(11th); Sunderland(17th) - 2 goals; Aston Villa(15th); Everton*

Two goals against direct rivals in a full season and the rest coming against team in the bottom half of the table for which top teams usually rest their first choice strikers.

CL: Shakhtar; Nordsjaelland - 2goals

He had a lucky rebound goal against Shakhtar and bloated his tally against possibly the weakest team in the Group Stages that year.

Europa League: Steaua; Rubin - 3 goals; Basel; Benfica

On our route to the Final the only team we faced who might have enough quality to be in the top half of the EPL is Benfica, it was the most important goal Torres has scored for CFC against a great team.

But honestly I've seen Massimo Maccarone and M'boro do well in the Europa League so it's not exactly the most vindictive competition we could win and in most years you'd face tougher teams on route to a FA Cup final than we did in our Europa League run. In fact there is many similarities between the two

The player's spell at Middlesbrough is remembered for two last minute winners in key UEFA Cup ties in 2006. He scored against Basel in the second leg of the quarter-finals, a tie in which Middlesbrough overturned a three-goal deficit to win 4–3 on aggregate.^[6] In the semi-final of the same competition he came on as a substitute and scored twice in the aggregate 4–3 win over Steaua Bucharest,^[7] once again in the 90th minute, taking Boro to the final in Eindhoven, in which he came on as a substitute. Following his exploits in the semi-final, fellow Middlesbrough striker Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink declared "Massimo, I love him until I die... it's unbelievable".^[8]"

The difference between the two is that one was a sub player for M'Boro while the other was a first choice striker for the CL the previous year. They pretty much faced two of the clubs we faced on route to the Final, they also beat Roma and Stuttgart two teams which I'd rate higher than Rubin/Basel and lost to the third best side in Spain at the time.

FA Cup:Brentford(3rd in League One)

League Cup:Wolves(Relegated from Championship that year); Leeds(13th in the Championship)

Club World Cup: Monterrey(11th in Mexico)

So yes out of his 20 goals approximately 3/4 could be classified against good opposition, two of those could be classified against top clubs in the Continent. The rest is either Relegation threatened teams or teams who don't have enough quality to be in the Premiership.

4) Torres goes through rough patches all the bloody time, 24 hours without a goal; 6 months without a Premiership goal; etc, yet you seem to be very patient with him - well excuse me my patience ran out when he got send off against Swansea and failed to find the net in the next 1440 minutes(24 hours) of football.

[TrippingStep 336]

I've seen the goals. Krul was ridiculous

On the seconde one, newcastle defenders did everything you can do wrong, not attacking the ball before the rebound, letting the striker runs unmarked with no one running with him to bother him and the goalkeeper was a pussy, he should have come to the ball and if necessary colliding with Lukaku after boxing the ball.

[robsblubot 3,217]

Not sure if posted already, but here's a funny bit from Carragher:

He's the type of player you look at as defenders and you think 'that's probably why I retired'. You don't really want to be coming up against players like that.

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/29327/8950707/jamie-carragher-says-romelu-lukaku-can-fire-everton-into-top-four

I was expecting the same power, no not the speed but just the power, from Ba.

[Stats 6,980]

You said it yourself.

Arsenal are only playing Gnabry because they have no other option there. Walcott, Cazorla, Podolski, Oxlade, Rosicky are all out. Arsenal's squad is injury ravaged, and that's the only reason Gnabry is playing. Not because Wenger wanted to give his talents a chance.

But he is shining there ad playing and they are also winning games. He is a good prospect but if he can make an impact after a run of games then Lukaku certainly would have done the same with us.