One goal against Swindon is a little early to be proclaiming your going to be right about Torres. Tribalism has nothing to do with it either, I liked Torres as a player even before he joined Liverpool, is it tribalism when even Chelsea fans don't want Torres anywhere near the team for important, competitive games?

i said i was right last year not this year, were only 5-6 games in

so far torres has 2 goals, i would expect another 20 goal season as long as he is not sold.

important competitive games like europeon finals?the guy did well last year,thats a fact,and will do again this year given the chance

im not saying his premiership record is excellent,far from it, what i am saying is that he did well last year overall so no point calling him a lost cause when he clearly isnt one.

yeah i am sure they will hand out a few hidings this season

Watched the match last night and I know "it's only Swindon" but I thought Essien played really well (he is one of my all time favourite player's) and agree on here about Torres he plays totally different in the Cup games than he does in the Premiership. Now if JM could get him playing like that all the time it would be like a new signing.
Positives were Essien,Torres and Mata being defensive who would have thought?
Negatives don't think Willian looked to be worth 30mil and wouldn't be playing him over what we already have,but it's early days for him to turn it around.

Yes the league is is important and should be our main concern but there can be only one winner (dont see any difference in coming 2nd 3rd or even 4th really), We should not be just looking at that. With the investment we have had over 10 years we should be fighting on all 4 fronts. Torries has done very well with regards to what it was realistic to expect Chelsea to win. He been a "cup" player for us in that Chelsea as a team have only really preformed in cup runs

Since Torries has joined us for a number of reasons (mainly off the field ones) a league title win (or even a decent run at one) even with a goal scoring Torries has been out the window the cups have been our bread and butter and he has performed very well in them.

Thought Azpi played well too. He was really solid. Plus, being all fangirly for a moment (don't do it often), he's sooooo cute.

I think Willian's like Eto'o, he's going to need time to adapt to the pace of Premiership football, well English football really, he's being playing pub teams after all.

It's all relative. I think Torres remains a decent striker, but let's be honest, he wouldn't start for Liverpool or the two Manchester teams any more. He would be in with a shout at Arsenal and Spurs, depending on how their other strikers perform, but that hardly makes him a "damned good striker".

I'm afraid it's almost impossible for fans to ignore the price tag when it comes to Torres. The Chelsea management have made sure of that by bending over backwards to accommodate him over the past couple of seasons.
If Torres had joined us for £20m, and been treated like any other player, I'm sure the fans would be more forgiving.
Something was lost from his game following those injuries, but the club refused to accept that. It's time we moved on and accepted Torres for the player he is now, a decent striker who is still capable of moments of brilliance. But for a club like Chelsea, with aspirations of being among the elite of Europe, he shouldn't be our No 1 striker..though he might be right now.

agreed, its the price tag

so as fans of the team you guys should just forget it and support the player

hes paid back quite alot of it too, as you say he scores mostly in cups and since he joined you won fa cup,europa league and champions league

i know the league is priority but if you won a few cups this year too im sure you wont be that dissapointed!

not that i think its impossible for torres to get going in the prem too mind.

Why do we only judge the price tag?

Why not bring wages into it? Goal bonuses? Bonusess for apperences? etc etc.

Already after one game we have a number of comments Willian is not worth the fee paid.

If these fees was set with a template in mind you could work out if the player is worth his value but there is not one.

I think 9/10 it has to come down to personal view rather then a set formula.

I think the vast majority do support him. I've criticised his selection many times, but I've never blamed Torres personally. It annoyed me when the club hierarchy insisted he HAD to play, disregarding the lack of contribution he was making to the team, but that was hardly the players fault. In fact, psychologically that probably did Torres more harm than good.
You could see by his body language that he wasn't enjoying life with us, he's not stupid and must have known that parts of his natural game were gone. Perhaps Jose has got him to accept that and adapt his game ? If so, there may be more to come. Some aspects of his game remain as good as they ever were, his positioning and touch can be exquisite.

But how much of him "having to play" has been media rubbish?

He has played because during his time at Chelsea he has been either the better striker or fitted more into the method the manager wants to play

I think often anything to do with Chelsea is media rubbish as Abramovich doesn't talk, EVER, and that must drive them nuts.

Again, I think with Torres, it's psychological. He can still do it anywhere but the Premier League.

Maybe with some of the pressure taken off from Eto'o and Jose being a good coach, and maybe more squad rotation so Nando being less of a story for the press, he might improve. He's not going to be the player he once was for Liverpool, but I'd settle for 15 goals in the Premier League and him looking like he's enjoying himself. I like him, so I'm not going to get on his back, I'm a supporter, I might be disappointed but I'm going to support him and every player in the team.

Although if I was Jose Mourinho, I'd be slapping Willian this morning, because if he'd have passed instead of being a selfish git, Torres might have had a hat trick.

exactly, i cant iamgine jose biting his lip! luiz and mata have already been scolded but he remains upbeat about torres, hes just a different player to his liverpool days but still serves a purpose

so for someone to say lets stop wasting time on someone who will do nothing of note is just wrong i feel.

The so called reporters in football have become so lazy (and in some cases anti-chelsea) its easy to write stories about Roman demanding this and demanding this then to do some work for a change and reports facts. Roman really has himself to blame for not letting them interview him whenever they want

Didn't you cite the main reason for not wanting us to sign Falcao / Cavani as being that you thought they were too overpriced?

I think any amount for a player is overpriced, BUT thats not how football is run at at the moment sadly

So we have to use some logic in the amounts of money we pay out. Torries was a proven success in playing football in England, The likelyhood of him continuing the sucess in a better team was less of a gamble then a person who had never played over here would have been. It was still a gamble but that tiny bit less

As I said since there is no sure way of saying if a player is worth the money and it has to come down to personal views , In my personal view paying that sort of money for someone who had never played here would have a massive gamble.

Thats why I would rather transfer fees was not made public. As soon as a transfer fee comes into play people react to that rather then what the player actually does on the pitch

The Guardian podcast this week was so anti-Chelsea or should I say anti-Jose, it wasn't even funny. Did Jose sleep with Philippe Auclair's wife or something?

It was a massive "Jose doesn't play Juan Mata because he supported Rafa Benitez last season and Jose bought some player instead of Mata for Real Madrid and so can't play Mata because then it will be obvious he bought the wrong player and look he doesn't like any of the Spanish players cos they're Spanish" conspiracy, despite the fact he doesn't play van Ginkel who's Dutch, Willian and Luiz who are Brazilian, Demba Ba who's French, and he's given his reasons as to what he wants Mata to do, but don't let that get in the way of your Mata conspiracy theory eh boys?

I'm also fed up of Mourinho getting a battering in the press over loans and signings. They're not his ultimate decision, they're Emanalo's, that's one of the reasons he left last time.

How can Franco Baldini be getting so much credit and AVB none on one hand for Spurs' signings, but then there be no acknowledgment of Emanalo and blame for Jose on the other. I'll answer my own question , because it's another stick to beat Jose over the head with.

Its not Jose its a Chelsea thing.

I have heard sport reporters say their editors have told them not to bother submiting postive stories about Chelsea because they wont get printed. Pre-Roman it was down to Ken Bates being Ken Bates and having to much to say and now its because Roman wont say anything to them.

The media has it darlings "uncle" Arry and Dave "broke his leg at Wembley" Whelen etc and Jose the first time around but this time they need to knock him him down.

Thats why I switch off as soon as the game is over (if its not at the bridge), I really can not be bothered with either printed press or the tv "pundits". There is a Cloughty interview with Motson on youtube where the great man is having a go at the way football is being covered by the media, If only we had someone like him around today

Some of it may have been rubbish, but there were also numerous times when Torres should have been sidelined.
I can't believe there wasn't pressure put on several managers to play Torres.
The same nearly happened with Shevchenko, but Mourinho would have none of it. Mourinho played him, but he was often substituted pretty quickly, and he was finally left out. Probably the beginning of his falling-out with Abramovich ?

I have to disagree with this. During his time with us I think he has been the worst striker on our books yet has played the most. Drogba, Sturridge, Anelka, Lukaku and Ba all have better goals per minutes ratios than him. In terms of fitting into a method the manager wants best, we have actually been bending over backwards to play in a way that would let him score without any luck. Someone mentioned that he is a great cup striker but consistency is needed for a PL challenge and it's not surprising that since we have been relying on him as the number one striker we have primarily been a cup team. I'm not sure he's that great a cup striker either tbh but I'll support him when he plays.

Spending big money on a player is always going to be a gamble as you say, and if they're already proven in the Premier League that's obviously a good thing, but I think other factors come into it too when calculating how much of a risk it is. Using the example of Torres, he'd been struggling for form and fitness at Liverpool for quite a while before joining us. Even back then, I had big reservations over us signing him, and I'm sure others did too. Had we signed him a year or two earlier I would have felt differently though for sure.

van Ginkel's injury is worse than it looked. Surgery this week and it looks like he's expected to miss most - or all - of the season.

ACL poor guy, I hope he has a speedy recovery.

Yes, a real shame for him with the World Cup next summer too. Hopefully he can make a quicker recovery than anticipated.

If we had a striker capable of scoring regularly in the PL, then we wouldn't have the issue of cups being our bread and butter. Look at how the signing of Van Persie elevated Man U last season. Whilst it's true there can only be one winner, I want us to be pushing till the very end. I don't want our title hopes to disintegrate halfway through the season .

I agree we should be challenging for every trophy but as a club looking to become one of the 'big boys' in Europe, we need a consistent striker. It's criminal to see how our strikeforce compares to other teams. I just don't understand why Torres is so hot and cold? I've said this before but I'll say it again; he's had every excuse in the book to try and defend his awful performances (I should know, because I used to be one of those people!). Willian had one bad game yesterday and people are already jumping on his back!

Aguero hasn't been too bad for Man City. I don't really buy into this PL proven thing. If they're good enough, they'll deliver no matter what league they're playing in. If we could get Lewandowski tomorrow, would you turn it down because he isn't PL proven?