🇨🇮 Didier Drogba

[Tomo 21,751]

I think its time for graduall change over with JT and Lamps roles gradully slowing down and Drogba possibly leaving.

I think our potential new spine is Cech/Delac-Luiz-Ramires-Sturridge.

Will need time and a bit of patience lets hope we get it right.

[Chelsea_Fan 227]

where did this article come from??

Add to first post.

This summer will be significant changes in the team

[LDN Blue 7,903]

This is just another article to try and make everyone think we're trying to push Drogba out the door.

For all we know he's happy to play for his place under the current squad, let's be honest, he's 32. It's not like there are a whole line of world-class clubs looking to sign him now.

[Wilson 358]

This is the reason people wanna see Drogba go, I don't agree with with the people that say that but I can understand why they do say it. Drogba, stop your bitching and step up to the mark! Probe yourself because right now Anelka is playing better than him. Same for Torres, although he is getting closer.

[zolayes 14,489]

Add to first post.

This summer will be significant changes in the team

a better written article than the mirror ,,,but still speculation

[Henrique 9,133]

He will leave in the summer.

[LDN Blue 7,903]

''I doubt very much that Didier Drogba wants to leave Chelsea; he is being rested rather than dropped at the moment,'' a source close to the club told ESPNsoccernet on Sunday. "Chelsea need Didier Drogba back to his best for their run in the Champions League, but he also needs careful handling. Clearly Chelsea need to finish in the top four of the Premier League, so they have to rotate their strikers to keep them fresh.

"Drogba has had malaria, he has had a sore knee and a couple of weeks of rest, easing himself back, makes sense. However, it is true that he won't like being on the bench, even if it might be for his own good.''

Chelsea have three strikers competing to fit into coach Carlo Ancelotti's lineup, but the source added that of the three strikers - Torres, Drogba, and Nicolas Anelka - the player most likely to be sacrificed in the summer is Anelka.

"Ask any Chelsea fan who is the best striker at the club and they will tell you Didier,'' he said. ''Anelka has talent to burn, but the worry is how often he is willing to burn it!"

ESPN

[zolayes 14,489]

He will leave in the summer.

are you his agent???

[wa-poke 0]

I don't want to see him walk away. even though his performance in this season is quite bad. But sometimes I think Chelsea need to change.

[Madmax 9,219]

Why do we need so many threads about this?

[EskWeston 696]

The bottom line is the club need an overhaul. 2 Things will affect that overhaul, firstly how much money Roman is willing to spend on it and secondly who Roman and Ancelotii believe are the players who should make way for that overhaul.

Drogba could be a potential to depart given his age and general lack of form this season. I would be a little suprised though if Drogba was a victim of a overhaul.

[Kostas 1,468]

Drogba not seeking Chelsea exit

Striker no longer dreams of Milan, Real or United

Didier Drogba has everything that he wants at Chelsea and has dismissed suggestions that he wants to leave Stamford Bridge.

The Ivory Coast international's struggles have matched those of his club this season as his campaign was disrupted by malaria in November and he has scored just 10 goals.

Chelsea's decision to spend £50million on former Liverpool striker Fernando Torres has also cast doubt on Drogba's future and the latter is expected to start on the bench in Tuesday night's crucial Premier League match against Manchester United.

Marseille, who sold Drogba to Chelsea for £24m in 2004, are understood to want to take the 32-year-old back to France, while there have also been reports of a swap deal for Real Madrid's Kaka.

Amazing

A move to the Bernabeu would reunite Drogba with former Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho, but the forward no longer wants to move to another European heavyweight such as Real, AC Milan or United.

He told French TV channel Orange Sport: "I have everything I could dream of at Chelsea.

"I am at a great club, with amazing team-mates, with a perfect living environment for my family.

"Some years ago I could have said, 'I dream to play at AC Milan, Real, or Manchester United'.

"But nowadays I don't feel such desire anymore. I am at one of the best clubs in the world. Those desires have been gone for a while."

SkySports

[Wilson 358]

Great news. Can we close all the Drogba threads regarding him suppusidly moving. Don't wanna hear it anymore, he's a Chelsea player, end of story.

[steve5221 91]

He is but with Anelka Sturridge Torres and Kalou in the frame next year Roman may decide that he is not worth 100k a week.....

[chrismada9 1,948]

Thierry Henry said something similar to this, and look where he ended up??

Nothing is what it seems! We can at least wait and see what this summer will throw at us!

[J.F. 1,484]

Drogba: I'm going nowhere! Striker refuses to quit Blues despite losing place to Torres

[Wilson 358]

Who cares what Henry said, Drogba is not Henry

[DYC. 7,542]

Didier Drogba proves why he has to be Chelsea's top dog - and that means Fernando Torres must start on the bench against Manchester United

Struggling Spaniard can make bigger impact as a substitute against Manchester United, but the Ivorian powerhouse must be the one to lead the Blues' line on Tuesday

By Wayne Veysey at Stamford Bridge

Apr 10, 2011 9:30:00 AM

There are some big beasts in the Chelsea jungle. But there is only one top dog – and that is Didier Drogba.

Following Fernando Torres' deadline-day switch, a pack of feared predators have been queuing up to bare their teeth at the point of the attack.

But on the evidence of the audition for Tuesday's season-hinging match at Manchester United, only Drogba has the bite to compliment the bark.

Chelsea's centre-forward required careful guarding against Wigan Athletic. He ran the channels, bashed defenders out of the way in a manner in which only he can, created space for others with smart movement and banged in shots from all angles whenever he had a sniff of goal. In manager-speak, he put in a shift.

He was also wasteful, too, in his desire to breach the dam erected by Roberto Martinez and prove he is lord of the manor at the Bridge. Excellent free-kick positions were wasted and team-mates were sometimes ignored as he strove in search of something that would guarantee his master's approval.

Carlo Ancelotti claims he already knows his team and the system he will play at Old Trafford in the quarter-final second leg.

He provided a big hint by binning 4-4-2 and starting with the 4-3-3 formation that has been Chelsea's bread and butter since the Jose Mourinho days.

Drogba alone up front, Nicolas Anelka and Florent Malouda either side of him and a three-man midfield patrolled by Frank Lampard, Ramires and John Obi-Mikel. Like John Terry, who was not in the matchday squad, Torres and Michael Essien were 'rested'.

Feeling blue | Torres has failed to score in 648 minutes at Chelsea since deadline-day move

As a dress rehearsal, it can be said to only have been a partial success. By the end of the first half, as Chelsea searched for greater cutting edge, Anelka was playing alongside Drogba.

At half-time, the ineffective Mikel was withdrawn and Yossi Benayoun was summoned from the bench for his first Chelsea appearance since September 22. By that point, it was back to the 4-4-2 formation originally introduced to shoehorn Torres into the starting XI.

Anelka made way for the Spaniard a third of the way into the second period after linking well with Drogba but failing to offer the kind of threat of which he is capable.

Torres' 31-minute performance was a considerable improvement on his previous 617 minutes in the blue shirt. He was industrious, lively and found himself in some excellent goalscoring positions.

There was everything but the goal. How the Bridge willed him to break his Chelsea duck. Malouda's goal coaxed Wigan out of their half and provided the kind of space behind the centre halves that would have been an amusement park for the Torres of two years ago.

One Drogba cross narrowly avoided his lunging body. A long ball from the back sent him clear on goal but Torres' first touch, not for the first time in a desperate 10 weeks in west London, let him down.

With the clock counting down, Benayoun side-footed a short pass into his path in the penalty area with no Wigan defenders in sight. The crowd held its breath as Torres shaped to pull the trigger. Surely, this would be it.

Torres' connection with the outside of his right boot was true. The ball was heading for the back of the net. But Ali Al Habsi, whose reflexes had been in good working order all afternoon, stretched out his arm at the last millisecond and diverted the ball to safety. It was a mighty fine save but something is still missing for the Chelsea No. 9.

You feel Torres in his 2007-09 pomp would not have given Al Habsi the opportunity to show off his athleticism.

With his job and legacy possibly depending on the outcome of the Champions League quarter-final, Ancelotti cannot afford to indulge Roman Abramovich's marquee signing from the start on Tuesday.

For the Italian, it has to be Drogba leading the line, with two creators either side of him. Just the way the Ivorian likes it. The support act is not one that suits him or Torres. They both have to be the main man.

Malouda is likely to get the nod over Yuri Zhirkov as Saturday's Spring sunshine reawakened the player that had laid dormant for six months.

Yossi Benayoun is fit to start after making his first appearance for Chelsea since September 22 on Saturday but it would represent a gamble by Ancelotti to prefer him to Anelka, whose versatility and awareness should guarantee him a starting point. He is also the club's leading scorer this season with 16 goals.

Poor Salamon Kalou, scorer of nine goals this season – the same as Torres – will once again be shunted out to the sidelines.

Whatever the future of the Big Four strikers holds beyond this season, Ancelotti must concentrate on the here and now. It will suit Chelsea, and perhaps Torres too, for the club's record signing to be an impact substitute against United's tiring defenders.

That means letting the club's top Drog off the leash from the first minute.

Link

[quinner 9]

I Have to Agree....I Thought Drogba was Class Yesterday, Shrugging off defenders like they weren't even there!! Him & Torres played well when he came on IMO

[LDN Blue 7,903]

Woah. TX complimenting Benayoun.. Goal writing a decent article.. What's the world coming to?!

But good article. I suppose I'll be the first to hold my hand up and say I was wrong to doubt Drogba's attitude with the arrival of Torres. Seems it's the Shevchenko effect all over again, I have no doubt Drogba wants Torres to score as much as the rest of us, but only after we're leading in a game. Tuesday should not be about Torres scoring it should be about Chelsea scoring, no matter what & who.