Fernando Torres

[didierforever 7,349]

I've said over a month ago and I'll say it again: The sooner you accept that Torres is our first choice striker the more moaning and cry you save yourselves.

Yes, he's no where near a world-class striker, but at the moment he's our best striker. Accept it, embrace it, learn to live with it.

how?

[CHOULO19 24,332]

how?

His movement creates a lot of space for our AMs to drift centrally and make runs into the box. He also links up with our AMs much better than both Ba and Lukaku. Ba offers something different as a target man, but his form has been terrible for a while now and his conversation rate makes me want to cry. On the other hand Lukaku is faster and a better dribbler, but despite his physical strength, he's still unable to play well with his back to goal. Torres' decision making (as in when to shoot, when to pass and to where) is also better than Romelu's which is expected due to the lack of experience. His first touch also often lets him down. I highlighted all this in the article i wrote about Lukaku if you read it.

[didierforever 7,349]

His movement creates a lot of space for our AMs to drift centrally and make runs into the box. He also links up with our AMs much better than both Ba and Lukaku. Ba offers something different as a target man, but his form has been terrible for a while now and his conversation rate makes me want to cry. On the other hand Lukaku is faster and a better dribbler, but despite his physical strength, he's still unable to play well with his back to goal. Torres' decision making (as in when to shoot, when to pass and to where) is also better than Romelu's which is expected due to the lack of experience. His first touch also often lets him down. I highlighted all this in the article i wrote about Lukaku if you read it.

first of all, torres' link up play is abysmal. this myth of torres having a good link up play needs to end. how do u have a good link up play when you lose the ball at least 50% of the time it touches your feet. man united match was the prime example of it.

his MOVEMENT? he has no movement. watch sturridge's goal against villa. that is MOVEMENT.torres simply makes the most obvious runs and takes defenders with him. i ll give him that but what i saw of lukaku, he does that too (i am not including ba in the discussion because its looking more and more obvious that he is going).

torres' decision making is better??? seriously, dude??? did you see what he did against man united. last 40 seconds to go on the clock, iva makes a run on the line. a simple straight forward pass to iva, would have either won us a corner kick or iva would have put in a cross. but what does torres do, he loses the ball, leaves us open to a counter which could have so easily ended up as a goal. whats worse, he dint track back and try to win the ball off his own mistake.

also as u said, lukaku has better pace, dribbling, better hold up play, his 2 sub performance showed that he can link up with our mid better than torres did in the hull match or the united match. lukaku can act as a much better target man. and his work rate is a 1000 times better than torres. sometimes lukaku's runs are not what is expected, and he fails to engage defenders, but in overall play LUKAKU IS A BETTER STRIKER THAN TORRES AT THE MOMENT.

PS - u know sometimes our hate/love of a certain player can cloud our judgement and maybe that is the case with me and i am absolutely wrong. but the fact that ALL of my united fan friends were HAPPY that jose brought on torres and not lukaku, goes on to say a lot about this issue. and it was not just them. united fans took a sigh of relief where as there was a collective groan from the anti-united contingent (pool, city and some arsenal fans).

[Stingray 9,441]

I've said over a month ago and I'll say it again: The sooner you accept that Torres is our first choice striker the more moaning and cry you save yourselves.

Yes, he's no where near a world-class striker, but at the moment he's our best striker. Accept it, embrace it, learn to live with it.

Never!

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Never!

Then by all means continue moaning about it

[Stingray 9,441]

Then by all means continue moaning about it

We wil!!

[Las7 951]

His movement creates a lot of space for our AMs to drift centrally and make runs into the box. He also links up with our AMs much better than both Ba and Lukaku. Ba offers something different as a target man, but his form has been terrible for a while now and his conversation rate makes me want to cry. On the other hand Lukaku is faster and a better dribbler, but despite his physical strength, he's still unable to play well with his back to goal. Torres' decision making (as in when to shoot, when to pass and to where) is also better than Romelu's which is expected due to the lack of experience. His first touch also often lets him down. I highlighted all this in the article i wrote about Lukaku if you read it.

Torres looses the ball every 19 minutes;

He doesn't link up play any better than Di Santo would, if he was constantly being played in our side season after season;

Torres form is as terrible as Ba's his conversion and shooting rate are both worse.

Lukaku plays just fine with his back to the goal

Torres shoots on target once a match; his passing success is lower than Lukaku - hence his decision making is obviously worse for a striker. You want a striker that shoots between 4-6 times per match Torres manages 2 shots per match on a good day and 1 on target if he is lucky.

Torres first touch leads to one of two possible outcomes in a large majority of the time - a tackle or falling over and hoping the ref gives us a foul.

The worse thing about Torres is his movement inside the box; I don't remember Torres being in a position to score a tap in over the last 6 months; he is flat footed inside the box; rarely tries to get in front of his marker; rarely tries to get on the end of any possible rebounds; rarely even moves inside the box - whenever a winger/full back gets to the by line you can expect a few things from Torres - either he is moving away from goal; he is not in the box; or he is standing in flat footed without moving much(usually around the penalty spot) expecting the ball to be played in his feet despite there being two defenders in the path of the ball.

In conclusion - you sir are deluded

Below are statistics about his hold up play and link up - he is worse than the two other strikers we have currently by a fairly large margin

[CHOULO19 24,332]

first of all, torres' link up play is abysmal. this myth of torres having a good link up play needs to end. how do u have a good link up play when you lose the ball at least 50% of the time it touches your feet. man united match was the prime example of it.

his MOVEMENT? he has no movement. watch sturridge's goal against villa. that is MOVEMENT.torres simply makes the most obvious runs and takes defenders with him. i ll give him that but what i saw of lukaku, he does that too (i am not including ba in the discussion because its looking more and more obvious that he is going).

torres' decision making is better??? seriously, dude??? did you see what he did against man united. last 40 seconds to go on the clock, iva makes a run on the line. a simple straight forward pass to iva, would have either won us a corner kick or iva would have put in a cross. but what does torres do, he loses the ball, leaves us open to a counter which could have so easily ended up as a goal. whats worse, he dint track back and try to win the ball off his own mistake.

also as u said, lukaku has better pace, dribbling, better hold up play, his 2 sub performance showed that he can link up with our mid better than torres did in the hull match or the united match. lukaku can act as a much better target man. and his work rate is a 1000 times better than torres. sometimes lukaku's runs are not what is expected, and he fails to engage defenders, but in overall play LUKAKU IS A BETTER STRIKER THAN TORRES AT THE MOMENT.

Well we're not going to get to any rational conclusion with exaggerations like he looses the ball 50% of the time he gets it. Here's a comparison from this season: Torres had 16 successful passes in 70 mins against Hull as opposed to only 8 passes in 65 mins by Ba. Torres seems to understand our AMs better and for me links up with them much better Lukaku who likes to play while facing the goal and Ba who usually takes up the space that the AMs like to run into.

Movement is not only on the ball, but off it as well. Torres makes runs to the wings and into the whole and exchanges positions with the three players behind him which creates spaces and shooting opportunities. Yes, Torres creates more space than Ba and Lukaku.

I'm not concerned with individual events. Like I said, he's far from world-class, and similarly you could find more than a hundred times when Lukaku should have passed but instead insisted on dribbling and lost possession.

That's your opinion that Lukaku is a better striker atm, but I disagree. I think he can be a super sub but still needs a lot to be a starter. I explained why here: http://forum.talkchelsea.net/topic/16615-player-focus-romelu-lukaku/

Torres looses the ball every 19 minutes;

He doesn't link up play any better than Di Santo would, if he was constantly being played in our side season after season;

Torres form is as terrible as Ba's his conversion and shooting rate are both worse.

Lukaku plays just fine with his back to the goal

Torres shoots on target once a match; his passing success is lower than Lukaku - hence his decision making is obviously worse for a striker. You want a striker that shoots between 4-6 times per match Torres manages 2 shots per match on a good day and 1 on target if he is lucky.

Torres first touch leads to one of two possible outcomes in a large majority of the time - a tackle or falling over and hoping the ref gives us a foul.

The worse thing about Torres is his movement inside the box; I don't remember Torres being in a position to score a tap in over the last 6 months; he is flat footed inside the box; rarely tries to get in front of his marker; rarely tries to get on the end of any possible rebounds; rarely even moves inside the box - whenever a winger/full back gets to the by line you can expect a few things from Torres - either he is moving away from goal; he is not in the box; or he is standing in flat footed without moving much(usually around the penalty spot) expecting the ball to be played in his feet despite there being two defenders in the path of the ball.

In conclusion - you sir are deluded

Below are statistics about his hold up play and link up - he is worse than the two other strikers we have currently by a fairly large margin

All those stats are of Lukaku's time at Albion and Ba's time at Newcastle so they mean absolutely nothing since we play a completely different system.

[didierforever 7,349]

Torres looses the ball every 19 minutes;

He doesn't link up play any better than Di Santo would, if he was constantly being played in our side season after season;

Torres form is as terrible as Ba's his conversion and shooting rate are both worse.

Lukaku plays just fine with his back to the goal

Torres shoots on target once a match; his passing success is lower than Lukaku - hence his decision making is obviously worse for a striker. You want a striker that shoots between 4-6 times per match Torres manages 2 shots per match on a good day and 1 on target if he is lucky.

Torres first touch leads to one of two possible outcomes in a large majority of the time - a tackle or falling over and hoping the ref gives us a foul.

The worse thing about Torres is his movement inside the box; I don't remember Torres being in a position to score a tap in over the last 6 months; he is flat footed inside the box; rarely tries to get in front of his marker; rarely tries to get on the end of any possible rebounds; rarely even moves inside the box - whenever a winger/full back gets to the by line you can expect a few things from Torres - either he is moving away from goal; he is not in the box; or he is standing in flat footed without moving much(usually around the penalty spot) expecting the ball to be played in his feet despite there being two defenders in the path of the ball.

In conclusion - you sir are deluded

Below are statistics about his hold up play and link up - he is worse than the two other strikers we have currently by a fairly large margin

i seriously think these stats are kind towards torres.

if somehow u can get the stats of no. of touches torres takes in one match, and the no. of touches leading to dispossesion, that might show exaclty his involvement (or rather lack of it) in our link up play.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

I was one of the very few people criticizing Torres when people were making ridiculous excuses like Malouda hates him and Kalou doesn't pass to him and our midfield is too slow for him and that it's just a matter of time till he gets back to his best. He never got back to his best and he never will. But he has improved and adjusted to our system. But now instead of the ridiculous excuses the new trend seems to be ridiculous hate towards him despite us not having any better options. It seems this man can only inspire extreme opinions.

[Mouri_Matic 560]

Did someone say Torres is our best striker? hahahahhahahahhahahahaha

[YouNameIt 1,511]

I've said over a month ago and I'll say it again: The sooner you accept that Torres is our first choice striker the more moaning and cry you save yourselves.

Yes, he's no where near a world-class striker, but at the moment he's our best striker. Accept it, embrace it, learn to live with it.

Hes not our best striker and the fact that you belive that just makes me fucking laugh.

[didierforever 7,349]

Well we're not going to get to any rational conclusion with exaggerations like he looses the ball 50% of the time he gets it. Here's a comparison from this season: Torres had 16 successful passes in 70 mins against Hull as opposed to only 8 passes in 65 mins by Ba. Torres seems to understand our AMs better and for me links up with them much better Lukaku who likes to play while facing the goal and Ba who usually takes up the space that the AMs like to run into.

Movement is not only on the ball, but off it as well. Torres makes runs to the wings and into the whole and exchanges positions with the three players behind him which creates spaces and shooting opportunities. Yes, Torres creates more space than Ba and Lukaku.

I'm not concerned with individual events. Like I said, he's far from world-class, and similarly you could find more than a hundred times when Lukaku should have passed but instead insisted on dribbling and lost possession.

That's your opinion that Lukaku is a better striker atm, but I disagree. I think he can be a super sub but still needs a lot to be a starter. I explained why here: http://forum.talkchelsea.net/topic/16615-player-focus-romelu-lukaku/

lets not include ba in our discussion. he is a goner. no point in including him just to make torres' stats look good.

sturridge's movement was off the ball, not on it, and that was what i was talking about. torres has 0 movement and even if he makes space for our mids, he does not make any space for himself to score. lukaku on the other hand gives us a far more direct approach. instead of playing on the wings, he likes to stay central, play on the cbs shoulders and run the channels. that way lukaku proves to be far more of a goal threat than torres does and that is what we want from our strikers.

its not jut that one individual event. tell me the no. of times torres was dispossessed in the united game. its not a one-off.

u just said that @las7 's stats are useless because they are not of lukaku playing for chelsea and yet the whole of your articles seems to be based on his time in wba. i am sorry but u cant have it both ways.

i am baising my opinion on what i have seen in 7 pre-season matches and 3 PL matches.

so i simply cant find a good reason to accept torres as chelsea's best striker at the moment.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

lets not include ba in our discussion. he is a goner. no point in including him just to make torres' stats look good.

sturridge's movement was off the ball, not on it, and that was what i was talking about. torres has 0 movement and even if he makes space for our mids, he does not make any space for himself to score. lukaku on the other hand gives us a far more direct approach. instead of playing on the wings, he likes to stay central, play on the cbs shoulders and run the channels. that way lukaku proves to be far more of a goal threat than torres does and that is what we want from our strikers.

its not jut that one individual event. tell me the no. of times torres was dispossessed in the united game. its not a one-off.

u just said that @las7 's stats are useless because they are not of lukaku playing for chelsea and yet the whole of your articles seems to be based on his time in wba. i am sorry but u cant have it both ways.

i am baising my opinion on what i have seen in 7 pre-season matches and 3 PL matches.

so i simply cant find a good reason to accept torres as chelsea's best striker at the moment.

Yes, I'm not disagreeing that Lukaku makes more space for himself than Torres, but it just so happens that we, as a team, play much better when space is made for the AMs and not the striker because our whole system is built around the AMs not the striker.

I'm not saying he doesn't get dispossessed often. But so do Lukaku and Torres. I used Lukaku's stats at WBA because those are the only ones available, but at the same time I highlighted how we play different styles and how his attributes would not work here as well as they did at WBA.

[didierforever 7,349]

Yes, I'm not disagreeing that Lukaku makes more space for himself than Torres, but it just so happens that we, as a team, play much better when space is made for the AMs and not the striker because our whole system is built around the AMs not the striker.

I'm not saying he doesn't get dispossessed often. But so do Lukaku and Torres. I used Lukaku's stats at WBA because those are the only ones available, but at the same time I highlighted how we play different styles and how his attributes would not work here as well as they did at WBA.

the villa game is the perfect example. teams will try to close our 3 AM's down. every1 knows, that they are our strength and our X-factor. and hence we need an outlet for those guys. not another person who adds to the congestion. believe it or not i felt we played the villa game more as 4-1-4-1 with rambo as our holding, lamps, bombarding forward. their was no natural width to our play as mata and hazard both kept coming in. ba simply could not provide as an outlet. somthing which happened many times with torres last season, albeit for different reasons.

our whole system is built around the AMs and not the striker - 100% AGREED. but those AM's are going to be less ineffective with a striker giving them the chance to put in the end ball. that is the reason we wanted falcao, cavani. torres simply cant do that. lukaku is going to be more effective.