After winning the Europa League with an Injury time winner. I thought about what Torres did in that game. I know he won’t emulate Drogba’s goalscoring record but I think he could actually add more goals to his Chelsea record. I could even say that we keep the Strikers we have and bring back Lukaku and have the 3 rotate. Possibly with Torres and Ba starting most of our games having Lukaku start Capital One Cup games and FA Cup with some games against the lesser teams in the league but also have Lukaku on the bench to bring on in all other games. If we used this tactic I can see all three getting into the double figures for goals like this:
Fernando Torres 18+
Demba Ba 14+
Romelu Lukaku 10+
I can see all of them easily achieving these goal targets with the amount of games we could be playing.
Why do I say this?
I say this because in the final Torres did quite literally what he used to do, he made something out of nothing. He did extremely well to hold off Luisao (look at the size difference) and go round Artur, both times he could of gone down a got one of them sent off but he stayed up determind to score and he did. Im happy he scored out of all the players this season he deserved it the most. If you look at last season compared to this season he has improved in leaps and bounds, I think it was because he was in Drogba’s shadow from the moment he joined. However the first season without Drogba here Torres has done well. He’s scored 22 goals this season which is good considering the form he has been in. I have always said he was a good purchase it just took Torres a little time to pay that back but he is starting to I think it started at the Nou Camp after that goal he scored which made us qualify for the Final if we split the money we get from advancing to the final 3 same as the amount of goals we scored in that round, each goal gave us around 12millions euros each. So that single goal paid back around £10million, then you can do the maths for his other goals as my head started to hurt when I tried to work it out.
Is he worth keeping?
Yes I do believe he is, he has not just scored goals but he has got assists in his game as well. I know its not so important for a Striker but in our team and the way we are starting to play yes it is important for a Striker to have assists in his arsenal. Torres does contribute as well by his movement as he creates space for players to run into. He also harasses and pester opposition defences and they do slip up sometimes, for example take the 2nd half of the Final, Torres pestered Luisao and Garay that they where getting frustrated and tired from this making them cause more slip up’s and lose concentration, Torres’s goal and then the bad marking from Luisao on Ivanovic for his goal.
Change a Formation?
Could a change of formation benefit our strikers? I was thinking this and may do another article on changing the formation. If we look at the play of our Strikers, Torres sometimes drifts onto the wings leaving no one in the middle for the receiving end of the cross. This is where we could play with two strikers up top or play a false 9 formation, with Torres one of the wider strikers.
Is Torres worth keeping? Does he deserve to stay?