Watching this has just cheered me up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0c6-a5NZuo

You dont lose that.

hearing he has suffered concussion while playing for spain tonight has not (cheered me up)...now doubtful for sunday...just the kind of luck he doesn't need

In American sports now you usually are forced to sit out after suffering any type of concussion, not sure if that's the case over in England.

Ugh, Sturridge's red card is even worse now!

Just looks a different player in that video doesn't he? Even the way he runs with the ball looks different. Or is it just me?

Not really. Also from those videos he doesn't seem to have lost any pace either. Then you look at videos of him in 08/09 and he looks a step quicker, even though he scored less goals. Weird.

What is missing is that determination. In most of those goals he took the game to the defenders. Part of that was realistically knowing only he and Gerrard were decent players in that team. He seems to be missing that fire and responsiblity. The other thing is missing is his first touch, in those videos he rivals Iniesta but for Chelsea he's had touches that would make Kalou blush.

Maybe he needs to be told he is the best player in the team to perform, Look back at A Madrid and Liverpool, that was clearly the case. He didn't do that well playing for Spain, when he was surrounded by quality players.

Tactically, I think it's more to do with the fact that he doesn't know how to play with people on his level or as part of an attacking force. In all of those goals, in his general play for Liverpool, he was furthest forward and whenever he got the ball drove towards goal. The Torres we saw last season had no purpose, no drive, was beating himself every match and realistically needed someone to tell him to harden up and take responsibility instead of palming the ball off to someone else.

He's starting to show signs of doing that, I expect him to be back to being a functional member of the team soon.

Remember the first goal like it was yesterday, made Ben Haim look like a pub player.

If he kicks off like that this season we will have a mean strikeforce, lets just hope he does because if he hits that kind of form he is one of the best on this planet.

He just doesn't have the lightning pace anymore and we saw last season what he was like without that extra half a yard, hopefully he can prove me wrong though.

He just doesn't have the lightning pace anymore and we saw last season what he was like without that extra half a yard, hopefully he can prove me wrong though.

I disagree, last season he wasn't fully fit and had no confidence, that extra yard is all down to confidence we saw it against villa. He's still very quick and looking sharp.

I disagree, last season he wasn't fully fit and had no confidence, that extra yard is all down to confidence we saw it against villa. He's still very quick and looking sharp.

Hope you're right, we'll see over the coming months anyway!

He has never been henry fast any way, what he had was a quick first 5 yards or so.. I think we saw that turn of pace a few times last season, as has been said the basics let him down last season.

Can't remmember who it was against but we had a game where he had 2 or 3 very good chances up against one defender and keeper and he just didnt look to have any beliefe he was going to score. Thats the issue. for scousers it didnt matter who he was up against

I don't care what anyone says - moving to a big club, for a big fee brings big pressure. I think it was blown way out of proportion last season, and it was clear that it was too much for him.

Adapting to a new team takes time, and he looked like he needed a break.

Also, I don't think pace is an issue for him. It's not like he's had cruciate problems. He's 27???...

He's looking better already so far this season, and barring serious injury, he'll be scoring again - no doubt. He's world class and any team would take him. Fergie may have been stirring it up with those comments last season, but he wasn't fibbing.

I never quite felt like that with Sheva. He looked out of shape when playing for us, and his heart clearly wasn't in it. He was too busy playing golf....

He has never been henry fast any way, what he had was a quick first 5 yards or so.. I think we saw that turn of pace a few times last season, as has been said the basics let him down last season.

Can't remmember who it was against but we had a game where he had 2 or 3 very good chances up against one defender and keeper and he just didnt look to have any beliefe he was going to score. Thats the issue. for scousers it didnt matter who he was up against

He had a couple of decent chances against Copenhagen early on where he was in the right posistions but it look like he didnt have the belief. After that he seemed to just fade away.

I don't care what anyone says - moving to a big club, for a big fee brings big pressure.

He moved from a smaller club in Atletico to a larger one in Liverpool for a pretty large fee when he was younger but he found his feet very quickly there.

Interesting take on Torres's issue (s)

Back in April, I wrote about Fernando Torres's struggles, insisting he is far from finished at the top level and suggesting the root lay in Chelsea's tactics.

But following a dispiriting outing in today's 1-0 friendly win against a weak Malaysia All-Star side, it is hard not to conclude that Torres's problems exist overwhelmingly inside his own head.

Tactically, Chelsea were set up perfectly for their number nine - he played through the middle, with good support from Salomon Kalou and Florent Malouda, and no Didier Drogba.

It was as though Andre Villas-Boas's top priority from the game was to get a goal for Torres - which given the importance of the Spaniard rediscovering his form, may well have been the case.

Torres played well in his 45-minute appearance, but fell apart every time he had a glimpse of goal.

In Matthew Syed's book Bounce (about a year too late, admittedly), he draws together various theories on what makes a sportsman successful.

In an illuminating chapter on choking, he explains that top sportsmen and women have their technique built so firmly into their brain that they almost literally do not have to think about what they are doing.

Strikers use implicit memory, which has been honed by years of practice, to take the shot - a bit like driving a car, which most people can do without paying much attention to their multi-tasking.

It is called expert-induced amnesia, and it allows sportsmen to use the conscious part of their brain on other tasks, such as watching the goalkeeper's movement in order to find the opposite corner.

Choking occurs when players become so anxious and pressurised they try to use the explicit memory used by novices - as you do when you are learning the basics - and consequently they tend to play like them.

It is a persuasive theory, and in the case of Torres would explain his woes thus:

A confident, calm Torres, when presented with a one-on-one in the second minute, would have swept the ball into the net without a second - or even a first - thought. If a top goalscorer's finishing appears automatic, that's because it is. Instead, the Chelsea man sidefooted it straight at the goalkeeper.

There was nothing wrong with Torres's all-round game. His movement and touch were good, and at one point he nutmegged his man with apparent insouciance - but when he ran onto the ball and took his shot his explicit thoughts took over and stilted his execution.

Now, of course, you might point out that no other Chelsea player was able to hit the net (the game's only goal went in off the Malaysian goalkeeper), and that Frank Lampard and Daniel Sturridge squandered chances every bit as easy as Torres's.

But the verdict that Torres is playing without confidence does not stem from 45 minutes of pre-season friendly alone.

It can be drawn from seven miserable months in a Chelsea shirt that have brought just one goal and countless missed chances.

In any case, the point is not that confidence and implicit execution, from which Lampard and Sturridge presumably benefited, do not guarantee success - but they do make it more likely.

And players with a generally positive outlook are less likely to be deterred by a single failure - next time Sturridge gets a one-on-one, he will focus on the possibility of success rather than the memory of his previous miss.

Failure leads to a loss of confidence, which in turn makes further failure more likely.

So how to reverse this vicious cycle?

You would think pre-season run-outs against weak opposition would provide the perfect opportunity to rediscover the scoring knack, yet Torres faltered.

And if you're not even confident against a Malaysian 'All-Star' side that has already been whomped by Arsenal and Liverpool... well, you've got a problem.

Syed also writes that many sportsmen actually benefit from overestimating their own ability - an iron conviction that you are the best in the world makes success more likely, even if your belief is false.

Torres appears to be suffering from the opposite problem. He really is one of the world's best. We have all seen the evidence.

And yet, in his head, he is a pub player.

Carlo Ancelotti's inability to solve this conundrum contributed to the loss of his job; Torres is already the most pressing issue for the new manager Villas Boas.

http://uk.eurosport..../article/13276/

Edited August 12, 201113 yr by Kev123