I don't think that's much of a deal. We paid around £17m (with add-ons) for him as a virtually untried 18 year old. He scored 17 goals for WBA, often not playing full games, and he'll probably score close to the same this season for Everton in similar circumstances.
Let's at least give him a chance, look at some of the big name failures other clubs have purchased. We have plenty of dead wood to get rid of before we sell Lukaku..in my opinion.

Absolutely

Torres and Ba have to go first before Lukaku.

Our side needs a really good removal of deadwood, hopefully Jose has seen enough now to make those decisions.

I include all the ridiculous loanees we have. Either they are good enough, or not.

That's certainly true. At the last count we had around 28 players out on loan, with a total market value in excess of £120m. Of course a large slice of that is made up of the market values of Courtois and Lukaku, but it also includes players who have little or no hope of making the grade..not with us anyway.
Marin, Moses, Bertrand, Van Aanholt, Kakuta, McEachran (he's still only 21 !), Hutchinson (though he's nearly out of contract) and possibly Romeu (?) should raise a few bob. I can't see them making it with us now. Then there are others who we need to take a closer look at, like Piazon, Chalobah etc., That would still leave us with a lot of top quality youngsters waiting to break through.

Not an ideal result but 2-0 at the bridge is do-able; just got to hope Eto'o will be fit by then. We enjoyed some good spells of possession but as always we lack that final pass. It's been the story of our season so far - pass pass pass but no end product. I don't think this can just be attributed to a lack of 'balls'. If we look back at the start of the season, the way we played in some group stage matches were just as bad (Basel games in particular). Frustrating to say the least...Hazard/Oscar/Willian - these are good players but they're not even showing half of what they can do. When Oscar scored that goal against Juventus you just knew he was going to be a gem of a player but he's been in poor form for much of the season now. He hasn't progressed and it's worrying to see. I'm not sure whether this is due to the insane amount of games he has played or lack of confidence but something isn't right. He has the technique to pull off stunning goals but he's not displaying it.

Same goes for Willian. I remember reading his interview for the club and when he described his play, he said he likes to dribble but we don't see enough of it. He has the skill to dribble past players/take them on but he almost never does! Instead he opts to stand around for 4-5 seconds and then makes a side pass. Arghhhhhhhhhh it drives me insane watching this!!! But this is his first season in the PL so I won't be too harsh on him...but I will expect good things from him next season!

Jose should take all the blame for what's happend to Oscar, and our problems up front!

Rafa, had our 3 little gems linking and playing brilliantly TOGETHER, and with end product! They were the best part about our team and a joy to watch with even the neturals starting to like Chelsea.

They should have been left well alone, because the problems we had were what was happening behind those three players. Instead, he bulldozed his way in and fixed something that wasn't broke and ruined us an attacking force. Worse still, we're still losing to some very mediocre teams along the way.

After a difficult time at Madrid, and some dodgy results and performances this season, people in the media, and a small number of fans, are starting to ask questions about Jose, now. Has he still got it?

ps. I think we should lay of Torres a little bit! Nobody can ever take away him sealing us a place in the CL final, in one of the most extrordinary nights we'll ever go through watching a football match.

I don't know where to start answering that post, but the ps is laughable. Lay off Torres ?..you cannot be serious, he's had three years to prove his worth ! Some of his performances have been embarrassing, that one goal doesn't make up for three years of misery trying to persuade him to put in a bit of effort.

Bollocks.

We was losing to very mediocre teams as well. But hay neutrals and the media liked us so that's good. We got some great scores from the strictly come football judges, We was closer to the bottom half of the table points wise then the top but we looked pretty and was all shiney , Ohh and we was in Europe don't matter it was the poor relation a cup is a cup (nor do we come from North London)

Leaving things alone is the reason we have been in the mess we have been in the last 3 years (cue the cups we won, just for info we don't play in red and bang on about our history).

The media change as often as I chance my socks and its depended on their agenda of the day and as for fans questioning if he has still got it we have plenty of fans who only think about today and not years down the line and then will moan in years to come about us not winning anything.

Oscar has had a very tough couple of seasons and a lot has been asked of him and of course he mind is on The World Cup (and I don't blame him at all for that), He is young and has been asked to learn a lot on the fly, He is going to have bad games and that's a good thing as he will learn.

We was as far from a title challenge (the only way of measuring our success) as we was before Roman bought us. If that's what we want I rather Roman had not bought us and we stayed as we was. This season although we wont win it but we have at least made a decent challenge of trying, Nothing wrong with just coming up short as we have done this season, We gave it our best but for the last couple of seasons we have not done that, We have just sat around living off our past and trying to get the last drops out of the Chelsea teams that won league titles and been more worried about how we came across to outsiders. We more then likely wont win the Champions League again that's ok nowadays there are more teams then ever capable of winning it but again last season we did not even try, again we just banged on the drum about winning it when we failed, Banging on about you successes when you are failing is hallmarks of other teams and teams I would rather Chelsea cease to exist then be like.

I don't think its fair to say Torries has not tried. He is a professional and as such will always try his very best, Its just not worked out for him.

He came to Chelsea with a massive price tag and out of form and came into a very tight dressing room and had to contended with some players being unhappy he was playing instead of the Drog, We then had the AVB mess and nobody came out of that looking good. He came to Chelsea at a very bad time and it would not surprise me to see him regain some of old form at another club (and I hope he does).

I think its a insult to any professional player to say they have not tried. To get to the level he has got to you have to work bloody hard and that just does not stop overnight and for no reason.

Its just not worked out for him at Chelsea, Same as it has not worked out for players at Chelsea and other clubs. The price tag has been used unfairly as a stick to beat him with but its unimportant

I would have said the same during his first couple of years with us, the Chelsea fans were extraordinarily patient and supportive of Torres. But I do now question his commitment and desire.
I wouldn't go as far as to accuse him of not trying, as you say he's a professional and I very much doubt that any professional footballer would take to the field and deliberately "not try". But as I said a week or so ago, a lot of the time now he just appears to be "going through the motions". If a chance comes his way, he'll take it, sometimes with great style. But he doesn't seem interested in going that extra mile for the team
.
I still have some sympathy for him, but not a lot. For some reason nobody can seem to fathom, when he joined us he found himself incapable of doing some of the things that came naturally to him. He was only 27 so it wasn't age catching up with him. The injuries he received must have had some effect that didn't show up in any medical. That must have been difficult to accept, but he should have adapted his game to compensate. Instead he went into a sulk that has lasted for three years and counting.

Like others here I'm completely fed up with Torres. Why Mourinho just doesn't give Ba a proper chance is beyond me, there's nothing to lose considering how dire Torres is. As someone said on here the other day, let's just hope that we're only a few more games from seeing his last appearance in a Chelsea shirt.

Being a footballer is no different then any other job, Sometimes it works out and sometimes it don't.

If we had paid 5m nobody would batter a eyelid but because we paid 50m we expected something else but the price tag is something he has no control over.

I have never seen Torries "sulking".

Adapted his game is very easy to say but not that simple, Its not like he has been at a stable club.

In any other career his time at Chelsea would have been seen as one of those things that happen in companies up and down the land but because of the price tag and this idea we have for players having to "go that extra mile" for the shirt etc we hold them to different standards.

Any transfer is a risk, the bigger the price tag the bigger the risk and in this case it did not work and I think the club is just as much to blame then Torries.

I have always thought any transfer fee should be kept between the two clubs. I don't see what anyone gets out of knowing it.

It's so easy to accuse Torres of not trying, but i'd never say that about any footballer!

I was there when we were relegated to the old second division in the play offs.
That day, our players looked like they were walking through mud in the second half. Not because they were lazy and didn't give a toss. It was because they were playing with fear and zero confidence, much like Torres has been doing with us.

Anyway. I stick by what i said about his goal against Barca. Yes. It was only one goal, but it was such a big part of that most amazing run to CL glory.
Money can't buy what i felt, and what it meant to me!

Can't say I agree with that. He would have had an easier ride from the media and rival fans of course, but a lot of our fans would still feel exactly the same about him. We signed Pizarro and Ben Haim on free transfers but it didn't change what anyone thought about their time here.

I agree, the price tag shouldn't make any difference, but we know it does. If Torres had been a £5m signing, we wouldn't have persevered trying to find a combination of players and a style of play that suited him. After his first barren run, he would have been shipped out and forgotten.
As you say, the price tag is not his fault. But after a £50m investment it's understandable that the club bent over backwards to accommodate him.
Where I do disagree is about his attitude. In most jobs you can't "go that extra mile", you can concentrate more, put in extra hours, but it still may not result in you doing your job any better. Being a team sport, I think Torres could have done more. Lesser players than Torres have raised their game by showing some grit and determination.
I stand by what I said earlier, some of his performances have been embarrassing. Not for any monumental mistakes, but because of an apparent lack of commitment and desire. I doubt that any boss outside of football would put up with that for very long, whatever the company it's not good for morale.

Jose has defended Torres.
On radio 5 live earlier this evening, he said, Torres is a good professional who works hard for the team and does his best. He added that he does have a future at the club.

Btw. Does anyone if the club are still looking to build a new stadium? It's gone a bit quiet over the last year.
With talk about us having to start tightening our belt, it's more important than ever we get a move on with the stadium.

Excellent - a vote of confidence! He's definitely gone now.....

Anything we won was in spite of Torres not because of him.

Lukaku is improving every season it would be crazy not to give me a chance next year, He is surely the natural successor to Drogba.

Torres has been a disappointment, but without that goal, I dont think we would have reached the CL final, as they were swarming all over us at the time.
And dont forget that ET goal against MC meant a 3 point advantage over them, if we (Unlikely) win the PL by 1 or 2 points over MC.

Think the new stadium has been slightly put on the back burner at the moment due to 1) finding a suitable location and 2) the shocking way they went about it last time.

It really created a bad feeling with some fans (not moving but how it was done), that unless the perfect location suddenly came on the market I don't think they will try again until the season after next.

Saying we've had enough/given up on him doesn't dismiss the occasional good thing he has done.


Man City 4-1 Southampton

Wait until you see the second City goal...

Cech; Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Azpilicueta; Matic, Lampard; Willian, Schurrle, Salah; Torres

Schwarzer, Kalas, Cole, David Luiz, Oscar, Hazard, Ba

No Hazard and Torres up-front? Lets hope our AM's step up today.

Wrong'...........