Is it cold in Liverpool?

[Bob Singleton]

Must be as they're already burning shirts

http://i53.tinypic.com/l8g95.jpg

Didn't take the dippers long to turn on their past hero!

[Sam Slater]

Does this mean the end of Drogba, Bob? Torres and Drogba are similar front-men and make the same runs. Can't see them playing upfront in a 4-3-3 and neither in a two (since both don't track back).

What happened to Chelsea's youth policy? Heard they tried to offload Sturridge earlier (Bolton?). Is this Abramovich's last splash of the cash to get that all-elusive Champions League before the new rules come in? I mean, the league's all but over for you guys so I can't see him spending this much for this year's league, nor next year's as he may have got Torres cheaper in the summer. I can see one of Man Utd, Arsenal and Man City going on a bad run but not all three.

On another note, we can now see why Chelsea were overly keen to postpone the Man Utd match last month!

[Bob Singleton]

To answer your last question first, it was the authorities, not Chelsea, who postponed the Man U game on safety grounds.

I agree it'll either be Torres or Drogba up front, but having Torres will give all the front men (Malouda, Kalou, Anelka & Drogba) a kick up the backside. The squad has been so thin of late that there isn't any real competition for places anymore.

I think RA has gone for Torres in the hope he helps the team win the Champions League this season. It was also the perfect time to get Torres. Man City had just bought Dzeko so unlikely to try and out bid us, and in the summer other teams like Milan, for example, may also have been after him (and no guesses who Liverpool would have preferred to sell to).

As for the youngsters, we've had so many injuries that we've needed to throw too many of them all at the same time into the deep end. McCeachran looks a good prospect, and hopefully the loan deals for Sturridge (Bolton), Kakuta (Fulham) and van Aarnholt (Leicester) will see them progress more than either playing in the reserves, or having to step up too early to cover for established but unavailable first teamers.

Ramires was the only major long-term signing last summer and he and Benayoun (+ the youngsters) were never going to be enough to make up for Carvalho, Belletti, Joe Cole, Deco and Ballack leaving. We should have gone for someone like Luiz in the summer rather than now, and we desperately need one or two creative midfielders. Lampard is over 30 and is our most creative midfielder... and compared to a Nasri or a van der Vaart, not all that creative!

I think the Torres signing is RA's personal doing, so from a financial fair play point of view it"ll be shown as a personal loan from the owner to the club. In the summer I can see both Ferreira and Bosingwa leaving, with maybe Gregory van der Wiel coming in for them and a bid being made on a creative player like Alexis Sanchez or similar.

I agree the Premiership is a very long shot for us now, but there have been so many crazy results so far this season, you never know LOL

[Arginald Valleywater]

Will be very interesting too see how Torres knits in. For that fee I expect him to be ripping them into the net for fun. He should get better service than he did at Liverpool. If he doesn't the manager better pack his bags...as for Carroll going to Liverpool they have paid way too much. I can see him as the new Bellamy, fine player but too hot headed to make the most of his talent.

[David Johnson]

I would have thought they would have been cracking open the champagne.

?50 million for a player who hasn't really performed for at least 18 months now. It will be interesting to see how he gets on at Chelsea.

Didn't prevent Blackpool doing the double over them - total cost of Blackpool team about ?3 million i.e. half his left kneecap.

Cheers
D

[Bob Singleton]

Arginald Valleywater wrote:

> Will be very interesting too see how Torres knits in. For that
> fee I expect him to be ripping them into the net for fun. He
> should get better service than he did at Liverpool. If he
> doesn't the manager better pack his bags...as for Carroll going
> to Liverpool they have paid way too much. I can see him as the
> new Bellamy, fine player but too hot headed to make the most of
> his talent.

Torres got excellent service at Liverpool when Alonso was around, but too often in the last couple of seasons he and Gerrard had to carry a team of make-weights, quite often when still recovering from injuries. However good a player is, they'll never be at their best in those circumstances. At least at Chelsea, if he has a niggle, he can be rested and allowed to fully recuperate.

?35m for Carroll is about ?15m too much, even taking into account the crazy, over-inflated prices of English players being sold between English clubs. If he were, say, German going between two continental clubs, I doubt any fee for him would have been much over ?15m.

We do have a major problem in this country. The money going into football from Sky means teams are paying silly money for players just because they can. Factor in the billionaire owners of a handful of clubs and the situation becomes even more grotesque.

The problem is that because "selling" clubs know that certain clubs are owned by big-spending millionaires, they can ask for ridiculous amounts for their players and probably get it.

Big club though they are, Arsenal seem to pick up good young players for reasonable amounts. Partly that's down to an excellent manager and scouting team, but also due in no small measure to the fact that everyone knows they run a tight ship in terms of wage structure and what they're willing to pay in the transfer market. So, when the time comes on those rare occasions Wenger gets his cheque book out, he doesn't get stitched up!

For a while Chelsea started to do the right thing... getting rid of some of the high earners, not getting involved in bidding wars, and only spending a big sum of money every now and then on a young player with good potential resale value. Now that sound fiscal strategy has been blown out of the water with ?75m being spent on two players. As a fan I'm torn in two. Happy to have Torres and Luiz at the club, but disturbed at the ramifications it may have regarding playing in Europe under the financial fair play rules (not something Liverpool will have to worry about for many years)

[Bob Singleton]

Sam Slater wrote:

> Does this mean the end of Drogba, Bob? Torres and Drogba are
> similar front-men and make the same runs. Can't see them
> playing upfront in a 4-3-3 and neither in a two (since both
> don't track back).

One thing I meant to say last night is that IF they do play together up front as a pair (in a 4-1-3-2 formation?), Drogba does tend to drag defenders to the right (which benefited Malouda), while Torres tends to drag players out to the left. In this respect, there is no "conflict". While both are out and out "Number Nines", Torres could play off Drogba far more easily (and with better results) than Drogba playing off Torres. It'll certainly cause the opposition some headaches; Drogba bullying the centre halves while laying balls off to a player with the speed and clinical finishing of Torres... but you're right, neither track back.

However if Ancelloti plays a 4-1-3-2 formation as I've suggested, it may just be possible to play two players who don't track back and just about get away with it. At times I can even see it being 4-2-2-2 with Essien (or Ramires) dropping back to help out Mikel, Lampard and Malouda in the support roles and Torres and Drogba up front with the full backs still providing the width, as they have done in the 4-3-3.

[dimi]

Who cares?! Fernando Torres is a poor mans Rickie Lambert! !footie!

[David Johnson]

Anybody spotted a Chelsea fan setting fire to a Torres shirt yet?

Cheers
D

[Bob Singleton]

David Johnson wrote:

> Anybody spotted a Chelsea fan setting fire to a Torres shirt
> yet?
>
> Cheers
> D


Why would that happen? Not his fault we don't have a single creative midfielder. Not his fault Ancelotti chose to play a diamond formation that has been shown time and again NOT to work.

If there was an Ancelotti shirt, however, I could imagine a few of those being burnt, based on the current string of posts on CFCnet