Sorry if this has already been posted . Decent read .

http://www.goal.com/...ndo-torres-poor

Personally I think it was more to do with the lack of a plan b, not to mention

hardly any of the players had any go in them.

The players got off lightly, but then again you can argue that it's the managers

job to motivate them.

I'd add the World Cup after-effect to the mix.

Throw in Frankl Lampard's injuries, Drogba's malaria and you don't have to wonder why we sometimes struggled for goals.

But back to the World Cup effect: I think it was Ray Houghton who explained it better than anyone. The players return from the World Cup with stories to tell, excited and raring to go. This excitement carries them through the first few weeks of the season, and it's so it's a while before the after effects make themselves fully apparent. At this point the players pretty much run out of steam, struggling for form and fitness. As the season progresses, the players having not had the benefit of a break, never manage to attain full fitness, but can and often do find a second wind, they find a bit of form, results pick up, but the players never manage to get back to their best.

Now if you look at the season just gone and take into account that we sent more players to the World Cup than any other Premier League team, I'd say the above is a pretty good corollary of the way the season went. Wouldn't you?

Edit: Ancelotti's lack of a plan B, together with his tendency to select players apparently on reputation when they were clearly unfit (prime examples again being Drogba and Lampard) and/or off form, didn't exactly help matters.

Edited July 25, 201114 yr by Hutch

I think it was a perfect storm, summed up by Hutch`s post. Everything seemed to build to a point where any incoming striker was gonna struggle in that team, such was the lack of chances created by our midfield.

I think the reason Ancelotti got the sack is because Chelsea didn't score enough goals. The defence was solid enough to win the title.

The reason Chelsea didn't score enough goals is that the two most prolific attackers on the team had terrible seasons. Lampard had an extended absence due to multiple, lingering injuries. When he came back he was a shadow of himself and never really contributed. Didier Drogba started off brightly but the malaria soon, and visibly, sapped his energy.

With those two gone, there was no-one to provide the missing goals. Anelka had an average season but couldn't fill the gap. Malouda has lost a step and also had about an average season. Kalou was a bit of a spark, but tremendously wasteful. Essien, Ramires and Mikel aren't scorers.

Overall, there was no-one to provide the goals that once came from Lampard and Drogba. In retrospect, the 2010-2011 team was excessively reliant on them. But hindsight is 20-20.

Torres was a dysfunctional player who joined a dysfunctional team. Torres carried indifferent form and an injury into the World Cup. Afterwards, he was never right for Liverpool. He came to Chelsea tired, burned out, still injured and further burdened by the pressure of his transfer fee. It was never going to work in the short term, especially on a Chelsea team missing Lampard's midfield spark and with no-one to feed him.

That's why Carlo got the sack. All this talk about playing the youngsters misses the point. None of them, not even Sturridge and especially not McEachran, was going to replace what went missing when Drogba and Lampard both had lost seasons.

I thought I'd throw this out there....is anyone else concerned with Torres during this pre season so far? In the early stages he doesn't seem to be showing much improvement over last year. One wonders whether or not 4-3-3 really suits his style of play. I don't see the pace of 2 years ago or the ball control. I really want him to succeed but if he can't score against lowly opposition does he start this season and AVB fall into the same trap as CA by starting him because of the 50 mill? Or am I reading to deeply into these recent performances?

I'm actually feeling the same. I watched the Thailand game and when he came off his face said it all. He looked so unhappy. I was hoping he would come back fresh with re-newed confidence but he looks exactly the same player as last season.

I really hope that AVB can get the best out of him and find a system that works. Maybe if we get a few new signings and Torres feels he's not the new boy anymore then mentally he might be more relaxed and just do the things that used to come naturally to him.

I so hope we don't have another Sheva situation on our hands!

Lack of confidence is the main issue. I've been there before since I used to play up front, you end up going into games worried about not scoring and you worry every time you get the ball incase you mess something up, so you usually try to hard and lose it anyway. But as soon as you get a bit of luck and a few goals in consecutive games, the confidence comes back and you start going into games sure that you are going to score. He just needs a few to go in, off his arse if need be, just to get some goals and hopefully the confidence will follow.

However, he's not really being helped to achieve this by our system. He's very isolated and usually surrounded by 2 or 3 players. But in the last match it was obvious they were trying more through balls to him, and he was getting in behind a couple of times, only to be let down by his touch. So hopefully that's an area we can improve on as well.

A typical response to Torres' poor form:

Thesis:

Torres was a waste of money/sucks/is a Scouse double-agent [delete as appropriate]

Part 1:

<insert comment about his knees + some cliche about "a yard of pace">

Part 2:

<insert reference to Torres being forced upon the manager>

Part 3:

<insert reference to Shevchenko, Kezman, Sutton>

Part 4:

Ignore management's post-match statements about the problems with creativity; , suggest signing Neymar or Andy Carroll to fix problem.

Part 5:

Ignore the point of pre-season

Part 6: Repeat Parts 1-5 ad nauseum over TheShedEnd

Edited July 26, 201114 yr by SydneyChelsea

A typical response to Torres' poor form:

Thesis:

Torres was a waste of money/sucks/is a Scouse double-agent [delete as appropriate]

Part 1:

<insert comment about his knees + some cliche about "a yard of pace">

Part 2:

<insert reference to Torres being forced upon the manager>

Part 3:

<insert reference to Shevchenko, Kezman, Sutton>

Part 4:

Ignore management's post-match statements about the problems with creativity; , suggest signing Neymar or Andy Carroll to fix problem.

Part 5:

Ignore the point of pre-season

Part 6: Repeat Parts 1-5 ad nauseum over TheShedEnd

Forgive me if I am missing something or confused your post with something else...as I said I hope Torres succeeds, I don't think he is another Sheva et al or the manager is being 'forced' to play him. I think the pre season is a good warm up, forget about the results but when a world class goal scorer can't score against lowly opposition with the chances he apparently had and his ball control looked dodgy, something is surely missing...what it is, I haven't got the answer, hopefully AVB does and I liked his comments that we play to many passes sideways and not forward which he intends to change...hopefully that will help Torres.

I'm not concerned this pre-season yet. There's been a lot of focus on Torres because I think everyone either wants to see him succeed (Chelsea fans and the one or two media folk that aren't looking to throw dirt on us) or they want to see him fail (everyone else). That's what happens with someone with as high profiled as he is

AVB still needs time. I think he's identified the issues, it's now time to get to work on fixing them. And I believe he is.

Edited July 26, 201114 yr by Arq

Perhaps you haven't watched the 3 preseason games, if you did, can you describe the service Torres received in one word - I can - crap. We have been pretty sh*t in all three games, but that's the nature of preseason hence the prefix "pre" come back and start the thread in December if the same situation prevails.

It's the persistent observation that he's not moving well which bothers me. That's been a consistent theme since last season. I assume he's now injury-free. So I'm not sure what the problem is. Surely he's too young to have lost his pace already?

I'm off to find another brick wall.

I have the same fear as a few of you. I am not sure if he is adapting well to our team. All i keep hearing is "give him time" but how much time do you give him? He scored one goal in 19 games for us last season or something like that. Do we keep playing him and hoping that he will come good or do we bench him and play Drogba who we all know can score? Its a tough call for AVB.

I have the same fear as a few of you. I am not sure if he is adapting well to our team. All i keep hearing is "give him time" but how much time do you give him? He scored one goal in 19 games for us last season or something like that. Do we keep playing him and hoping that he will come good or do we bench him and play Drogba who we all know can score? Its a tough call for AVB.

Maybe a few proper games after the team settles into the new system/style and gets used to Torres rather than Drogba up front? How many times in these pre season games have we seen players playing a pass to Torres' chest?

I think the team is not used to him yet and these pre season games are supposed to put that right. It wont happen in one or two games. Last season we didnt really have time for the team to get used to him so we cant really count those games.

Thankfully AVB doesnt share the same obsession with Torres scoring, not scoring as the media and fans and he's slowly working towards a system that will work.

AVB says he doesnt worry about Torres scoring but really what manager wouldnt worry about one of his key players not playing well. I would think that AVB is very worried that Torres isnt performing that well.

come back and start the thread in December if the same situation prevails

Sums it up perfectly.

I'm off to find another brick wall.

All in all you're just a...

Ahem, if only we had someone like Modric creating him chances... That said Yossi can do the business too.

I think that you expect too much from Torres. He made ​​some good movements - score first game, second game his cross went to goal, had and made some chances 3d and 4th games. So in compare to others, who played up front, i think he did well.(realy what you can remember from DD except FK?) And keep in mind that we played with teams that played deep defense. Torres always was marked by more than one player. Even then Ivanovic score, Torres was there and took two defenders, so Ivanovic was not covered. And in the end, as Villas-Boas said: 'The most important thing for us is to score and win. Whoever scores doesn't matter."

He still looks sh*t to me.

f**king hell give him a break, its pre-season

What about the 19 games before pre season?

What about the 19 games before pre season?

How about getting behind your players?

We never looked like adapting to his style of play, a long with him not being confident after generally having a bad season so now if you and the others who keep slating him could get behind his back for once and if things still are bad by december then you could start questioning his form.

Feels like some of you just hopes that he fails so you can say "told you so"

If we could only just somehow work out how to get the ball in to a position where Fernando could be guaranteed not to shank it wide. Then again, I'd be happy to tap the ball in from 6 inches for quite a lot less than we pay him.