Chelsea might be set to face a huge blow as they are left sweating on the availability of Fernando Torres who was sent off at White Hart Lane on Saturday.
According to Dailymail, Mike Dean showed Torres the first yellow for a trip on Vertonghen and not for raising his hand on him in the confrontation that followed the incident. None of the assistants were able to spot the incident and Mike will now be reporting all the facts to the FA’s disciplinary committee after which it will be forwarded to a panel of 3 ex-referees .
If Torres is found guilty by a panel of refs, Torres will be handed an additional 3 match ban to the one match ban following his red card extending the ban on the striker to four matches.
If the ban is imposed then Torres will miss games vs Norwich, Cardiff and Manchester City in the league and a Capital One Cup game vs Arsenal.
This new setback will come at the worst possible time when Torres put arguably the best performance in a Chelsea shirt vs Spurs on Saturday. Jose too was quite impressed with the work of Torres and offered some words of encouragement.
“He knows I’m very happy with his performances, He’s very strong, physically. I was watching Fernando’s matches for Chelsea in other seasons and he looked a bit heavy, a little slow. I think Fernando looks in fantastic shape now.”
“He knows I trust him and that’s important. If I leave him out, he knows I’m trying to do the best for him and the team. He’s not under the pressure he was under in other years and, physically, we are working with him”
Let’s hope Torres will be able to shrug off any new setback and improve and give the performances this season we all expect and require of him.
We have Ba & Eto’o its not gonna be a blow!
are you serious? they are not half as good combined as the torres i saw against swindon and tottenham.
Jeez! Out for four? When both yellow cards were crap? The FA is crap men!
Why oh why torres always does this to us. We thought he was back against Man Utd last season only to be sent off and come back half the player he was against Man Utd. The poor guy keeps getting jinxed every time he appears to be back to his best. I have always liked torres and still believe Chelsea plays so much better with him than without him. Remember the effect he had on the chelsea team the same season he was bought from liverpool? His signing picked the whole team up and I don’t think it was psychological only. You cannot doubt his hardworking nature and his commitment to the team. Lets back our £50m number 9!