gibbo1990

You sound like the geezer who does Big Brother

There have been quite a few games lately where it has been absolute chaos: end-to-end, frantic, maddeningly fast football with our midfield completely unable to impose any control on the game. Mikel is the perfect man to slow it down and get a spell of possession going - the six players in front of him can do the rest.

On this day 14 years ago JT scored his first Premier League goal against Arsenal at highbury

At the time of writing, the 34-year-old has scored 37 goals from open play, which makes him the highest-scoring defender in Premier League history. While David Unsworth found the net 38 times during his playing career, many of his were scored from the penalty spot.
Simply the Best

24 today, if he keeps improving at the same rate he's going to be one of the best players we've ever had.

That first touch though.... WOOF! 
 

IMHO, Yes considering the wealth of talent we have in that position. Matic's 25. Whats the problem? 
 
 
Good buisness making over double the amount we paid for a player that has played twice. 
 
Read my previous posts I have always been extremely supportive of De Bruyne. I believed he would be a starter but sadly he hasn't been able to shine albeit not having enough opportunities in my view. 
 
Were desperate for a Matic type player where as right now De Bruyne is a luxury were stocked in that position. Were basically funding Matic with the De Bruyne money. Good Business....

Drogba wasn't exactly a superstar when he came here, Lewandowski was a nobody 2 years ago, these "superstar strikers" have to come from somewhere, and name me a more promising teenage striker in world football right now than Lukaku.

The shot that came off the post really isn't the issue for me, it's the awful first touch. Lost count of the amount of times we are breaking, the ball comes into Torres with his back to goal and it either bounces off his trampoline foot and back to the opposistion or he tries to beat a player and literally just runs straight into them. He gives the ball away FAR too cheaply and his play inside the box isn't good enough to justify it i.e. Hernandez.

I will back Torres the whole time he is blue but I now think replacing him in January is best for everyone.
He is not suited to our style of play, we need more of a link up man with a good first touch who is creative around the box as teams are sitting in and defending deep. Torres has always been more of a striker who plays off the shoulder and more suited to a counter attacking team - although I'm not sure this would even suit him any more as he has lost that pace.
Replacing him with with a top striker (Falcao please) would clearly benefit the team and as much as I would love for us to stick with Torres and for him to come good I just can't see him doing it on a regualr basis any more.

I don't think it's about the price tag, I think it's more about what he was bought in to be/do. He was bought to be a superstar striker (a goalscorer if you will), to replace the ageing Drogba and to help maintain the club at the highest level. That first half a season, although he wasn't really fit when he arrived he was backed, by the manager, the players and the fans - let's be honest as a club we wanted Torres, we wanted a player to take over from Drogba who by that stage was clearly on the wain. He played the first game and looked woeful, his touch was off, he wasn't fit and he didn't look like scoring. That trend continued for the rest of the season, during which time Drogba became first choice again. The support of Torres from the terraces didn't change, next season with a good preseason and with the right support we'd see the real Torres!
And so to his first full season, there was a bit of an issue with the style of football we were playing not really suiting his game, we were still set-up to attack to Drogba's strengths. But he didn't create anything for himself either. Now I've got to say at this point that some of the chances that haven't gone in for Torres at this stage, he'd done everything right and only the fates seemed to be against him. There was no doubt in his first full season that he was fitter than the half a season prior but not much more useful. So much so that most of his good work happened out on the wings. He'd completely lost his bottle, didn't want to be in dangerous positions and didn't know what to do when he got there.
Role on to this season, backed still by the fans in the stands (more than almost any other player), backed beyond all reasonable limits by the manager - we're going into the season without a challenge to his starting position! Yet here we are again discussing his merits or lack of. Yes he's scored a few goals so far this season which is a dramatic improvement, yes he's had some nice touches beside that - he also causes many many attacks to break down - and he generally looks fairly fit. He's still not anywhere near the quality of player that we need. At some point in the season we're going to go through a spell where we're not playing well, that's when you need a striker that can dig you out of a hole if you want to win anything, I'm pretty sure even his biggest fans don't believe that Torres is that man? United have been sh*t for most of this season, yet in Van Persie they have someone that frightens the life out of defenders and delivers regularly.
I think it's great that our attacking play is so fluid and free-flowing at the moment but I don't think it will see us right through a long hard season. We need an edge and Torres has never and will never give us that.
I was so excited when we signed him (I was with Sutton as well!) but we're not Torres Football Club, we're Chelsea and Torres isn't doing the job that Chelsea need him to do.