Doesn't he also have a few years left on his contract as well? Which would also put another block in the way of trying to sell him.

It will certainly be a summer to watch for a number of trams and players, Torres being just one of them.

Yep, another 3 years after this season.

Aside from Lamps, the contracts expire this summer for Benayoun, Malouda, Ferreira, Hilario and Turnbull so at least we'll be shaving the wage bill there to make space for new signings.

Another three years, well it will be tough to get rid, I suppose you could always just do what City have done with Santa Cruz for the past decade (or so it seems anyway), and just loan him out to a different team each year!

Or Adebayor where they managed to sell him but only after agreeing to carry on paying a sizeable chunk of his wages! Bizarre deal that is!

According to rumours, Russian side Anzhi Makhachkala would be interested at around £15m. But Torres would prefer a move back to his home country.
To me, using Torres in a part exchange deal for Falcao looks perfect for everyone.
Torres gets to return home, where he is still a legend. If he is ever going to recapture anything of his old form, it's more likely to be with Atletico than anyone else. AM still get a lot of cash, we would probably be looking at £40m plus Torres. With a return to Atletico, Torres may be prepared to take a drop in wages.
Works all round.

He will definitely go back to spain, if anywhere. As you said, swap deal with Athletico looks likely(although rumours are Athletico want Courtois rather than Torres). Cant see him taking a pay decrease, we will almost certainly have to pay atleast 50% of his wages to get him to leave.

Yeah, was gonna mention there's probably no chance of us getting Falcao without Courtois being involved in the deal.

Apparently we value Courtois at about £20m if the rumours are true. May be a bit much but if we do actually offer both him and Torres to Atletico it should definitely mean a decrease in the amount of money we would have to offer them also.

We let Courtiois go and it will be the biggest mistake Chelsea have made since god knows when.

We will not find a replacement anywhere near the level he is who would be ready to take over from Cech, We have seen how much of a mistake not having a top goalkeeper has cost teams in the world. Unless we was getting Messi we should not be swapping Courtois for anyone more so a striker.

We would be once again be guilty of obsessing with having a "big named stiker" and not looking at getting the right balance.

I would like to keep Courtois as he is our future Number 1, but when exactly will he take that position?

Courtois has already said he expects Cech to be the number 1 for a few more seasons. Can we really keep loaning him out for the next few seasons?

Eventually he might decide he wants to be the number 1 at another club.

He is number 1 at another club.

Cech only has a couple of seasons as a number 1 in him and then what? Turnbull? We look around at the last minute trying to find a keeper and get some random? as we have done with in the past with players?

Cech is a sensible guy, He knows a being a number 1 goalkeeper at a top team ends just like that.

This addiction we have in finding a flair goalscorer is why we have stuggled to get into the top 4 last season and this. We have forgot about the rest of the team. We have no ball winners we have body to win 50-50 balls and we have no goalkeeper. If Cech was injured this week even now we would not get top 4. Having a goalkeeper ready to step into Cech's show is more important then any transfer we have bought since the start of the Roman empire and to sell the by far best option to do that well it would i have to say be typical Chelsea

indeed, torres should be the make weight in any falcao deal.

i honestly dont think falcao will come to the bridge though. fellaini will.

We still have Courtois as a bargaining tool without selling him to Atletico. Surely it's up to us where he goes on loan, or if he goes out on loan at all. If AM want him for another season or two on loan (which happens to suit us as well) they need to understand that it's best to play fair with us in any deal for Falcao. Letting them have one of the best young keepers in the world on loan is a big favour anyway.

Anyway, we might need him back sooner than you think. A couple of rumours going around that Arsenal are interested in Petr Cech.

We must be in the middle of a international break, Its one of those silly stories that often come out. More chance of Chelsea giving Kenny Daglish the job of Chelsea manager

Yes, Petr Cech has laughed it off. Definitely the silly season.

http://metro.co.uk/2013/03/20/petr-c...-move-3550605/

I agree, Torres has turned out to be an albatross around Chelsea's neck. But I don't think that should put us off the pursuit of another world class striker.

No it should not but not when it would cost us something we will need more i.e a world class keeper.

A agreement to continue the loan for another season or two 100% yes but using him for a part exchange no.

Would rather we looked at other options even those more expensive, Out of the two players i would rather we missed out on Falco

Agree with this. A permanent move away for Courtois should not be considered even if it means losing out on Falcao.

I would bring back Cortois and Lukaku.
Get in another decent goalie to challenge him and allow Cech a big money move as a reward for his service.
BTW - I stll rate Cech highly but just dont want to lose Cortois.

No, I agree, we don't want to lose Courtois. Young keepers of that quality don't come along very often. We do have 2 or 3 other young keepers on our books, but none that look anything like the same sort of class.

I think we need to take stock of the players we have and make some hard decisions.
Hilario, Ferreira, Malouda and Benayoun are obviously surplus to requirements. But then there's tougher decisions to make. Is there a future for Romeu, or even recent purchase Marin ? Unfortunately, it's looking more and more likely Frank Lampard will leave, and John Terry will not be far behind. We will presumably release Michael Essien, too soon in my opinion but that appears to be Chelsea's current ageist thinking.
Then we have the young loan players. Some, like Josh McEachran, appeared to be on the verge of breaking through a few years ago, is he going to make the grade or not ? Similarly Gael Kakuta, if he's not going to make it, release him.
Others should be ready to return to us. Jeffrey Bruma is turning out for Hamburg, let's see if he's a Premiership player.
How about Chalobah, Todd Kane and Patrick van AanHolt, how are they progressing ? We have discussed Lukaku many times, I think we should have him back as part of the squad.
Same with Piazon, I think he's a better bet than Marin to bring on in games. Kevin de Bruyne is also a must to bring back, he'll be 22 in the summer, only a few more years and he will reach his prime. Loans should be for teenagers, or older players we can't sell..in my opinion.

If we rationalise the squad and make the best use of all our talent, we could probably use another three players. A top class striker, providing we can find some way of getting Torres off our books. A quality defensive midfield player, while we decide exactly what to do with those on our books already. Then a keeper as backup, someone older and experienced shouldn't be too difficult to find.

What I'm really trying to say in that long and rambling post, is that I don't think we really know what we may have on our books already. Perhaps the Chelsea coaching staff know, but I sometimes wonder. Let's take a look at our investments, clear out those who are never going to pay dividends, then start adding to the squad.

It would mean we would have a shortage of senior players and something i feel is vital. Think we need to keep the JT's and the Cech's (agree Lamps is going sadly) and thats one of the reasons i glad we given Ash another contract. We have the next lot of senior players waiting in the wings, Players like Luiz (my choice for Capt if we keep JT for 2 more seasons) and Ramires and Mata but I not sure they are ready yet to give players like Hazzard/Oscar etc the leadership needed when we find ourselfs in a foxhole (something we find ourselfs in quite often).

For all what you say to happen (and alot i agree with) we are going have to make massive changes to the way Chelsea is run, We need to clear out the crap Ron Gouley and amatuer hour staff and some proper people doing the day to day running of the club, Having people who's background is womans football in the U.S.A should not be a)looking at the type of players we should be buying b)the contact between the manager and the board.

I personally would bring back Avam if we going to have someone look around for players and be the contact between the manager and board, He might not be a manager but he is a football guy has a fantastic contact book and knows the club and plus from meeting him and seeing interviews etc he is a decent guy (not something we can say about Gouley etc) We needed someone like Peter Kenyoun back the guy had his faults but he was very very good at his job.

We have an awful lot of work to do at Chelsea if we are to get back amongst a true title hunt, 2 years of struggling to get top 4 is seriously harming us another year of the same and I got a feeling we will never see the title back in West London

Don't think you can blame ageism for Essien's possible departure. If he were even half the player he was he'd still be one of the first names on the team-sheet for us.

If it's a choice between losing Coutois or making him first choice now.....thanks for everything Petr, but great goalkeepers don't come around that often. An extra season on loan should be the maximum agreement if he's part of any deal for Falcao. I'm sure I read that Delac will be granted a work permit now, so he can replace Turnbull and Hilario as back-up.

On the subject of Falcao, there's honestly not a striker in the world we could sign that would excite me right now. Our record with them is awful - even Drogba's season-by-season stats weren't that great. I don't like the idea of any more mega-money signings in that department, but it's what you have to pay for the best, so.......

Torres.....'Malouda' him if he won't leave.

I would have agreed with you about Essien on the evidence of the few games he played last season. But Mourinho has selected him for RM quite often (haven't got the stats to hand) and I can't imagine him doing that just for old times sake ?
The thing is, he's the kind of player we've been crying out for..but if he's finished that's fair enough.

Actually, strange you should mention Malouda. We appear to be punishing him, rather than looking to see if he could still do a job for us occasionally. If I remember correctly, he did have couple of decent games for us towards the back end of last season. Of course he went through a very lean spell, but he was always very versatile, strong in the tackle etc. He was still appearing regulaly for France last year !

It's a bit shortsighted really. I accept Malouda is on his way out, but if we had given him a few more appearances this season (presuming he wasn't a total liability) there would be more chance of some interest coming from other clubs.

The Malouda treatment is interesting in that it seems to have carried over from Di Matteo to Benitez. Which makes it unlikely it's actually the managers decision rather than a decree from someone else up high. It would be good before we get a new manager in this summer to work out exactly what the Emenalos, Gourlays, Bucks etc are responsible for and to what extent they affect the team (buying, playing, contracts). I would have hoped it would be very little, but in typical Chelsea fashion I reckon they all have their fingers in creating confusion.

Essien seems to play mainly at RB/LB for Madrid. My biggest worry for a Mourinho return is that he will try and make a team out of his old players, so I'd say it did play a part in why he went for Essien. It was horrible watching him play last year....he'll obviously be fitter now but, as with one of our current lot, he's lost his pace and doesn't look likely to adapt for it. He looked a red card waiting to happen when he was on the pitch.

The Malouda treatment is very strange. I know he rejected a few moves, but banishing him when we are already so short in numbers - and playing Benayoun FFS - is just plain weird. It's obviously orders from higher up, which is something a manager shouldn't have to put up with.

With Essien and Malouda i think it might be more of a contract thing.

As senior players they might have been entitled to a big pay raise with their next contract.

Essien i would give a contract to myself but can see why we would not, His injury record is not the best with us and with new players coming in and the new rules it is a large amount of money we could do with spending elsewhere