By STEVEN HOWARD
Last Updated: 25th May 2012
FERNANDO TORRES was remarkably bullish for someone who hadn’t contributed much.
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“The ideal for me next season is if someone tells me what is going to happen,” said the Chelsea centre-forward after the Champions League final.
“What role will I have in the team? What function will I have and what is expected of me? Then I can evaluate if it is worth it.”
Get you, Nando. The response, though, wasn’t long in coming.
Chelsea chief executive Ron Gourlay said after Didier Drogba’s declaration he was leaving: “Torres is a world-class striker and the man we will go forward with.
“He’s a very important player and you will see Fernando scoring many goals for Chelsea next season.”
Both Gourlay and Torres, 28, are placing a surprising amount of belief in a man who has managed just 12 goals in 67 games since his £50million move from Liverpool.
Yes, there was his equaliser right at the end of the 2-2 draw at Barcelona — though Chelsea were still through on away goals at the time.
But of the other 10 this season, eight came at home against Swansea, Genk, Leicester and QPR. And in between Genk and Leicester, he went five months without scoring.
So where does this belief in Torres come from? Perhaps because Chelsea have no choice. Because Roman Abramovich says, after his investment in Torres, the player must have one last chance to show the ability that delivered 65 league goals in 91 starts at Liverpool.
Which more or less spells out the way Roberto Di Matteo or whoever the next Chelsea manager is will have to play. Which will cause the same sort of problems that faced Carlo Ancelotti, Andre Villas-Boas and Di Matteo himself.
They were all ordered to play Torres and yet all quickly came to the conclusion that Drogba was by far the better bet. It could be Torres may have already had his day.
That his continuing failure at Chelsea is part of an inexplicable decline that cannot be arrested.
We’ve seen it with Tiger Woods in golf and, before him, David Duval. In football, we only have to look at the other ‘present’ Abramovich bought — Andriy Shevchenko.
Shevchenko was 29 when he arrived for £30m from AC Milan after scoring 29, 26 and 28 goals in the preceding three seasons.
In 48 Premier League games at Chelsea, he scored just nine times.
However much Abramovich wanted it to work, it was never going to. The situation with Torres is just as delicate.
Even more so seeing Chelsea, no doubt, would like to buy a back-up striker seeing that Daniel Sturridge isn’t good enough to lead the line.
But you can hardly hope to attract a player like Real Madrid’s Gonzalo Higuain and expect him to sit on the bench. Whoever the manager is, he knows the owner is desperate for Torres to succeed.
But what happens when the body language goes all wrong again, when Torres starts to sulk?
Will the penny then finally drop upstairs that if Torres is ever to recapture his form it will be away from Stamford Bridge?
Gourlay is merely delivering the owner’s message when he says Chelsea will go forward with Torres. To many others it is a sign Chelsea are going backwards.
New balls please
“ON my way from the halfway line, I lost my balls,” said the Bayern Munich star. “But when I got to the penalty spot, I found them again.”
These were the words of Bastian Schweinsteiger before the perfect spot-kick that saw Bayern triumph in the Champions League semi-final shootout against Real Madrid.
It seems Schweinsteiger lost more than just the final against Chelsea.
Ox is just plane silly
IT seems Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain does not like flying.
Watching Air Crash Investigation, as the Arsenal youngster does, would not appear to be the best way to overcome this phobia.
It’s a bit like a recovering alcoholic never missing an episode of Geordie Shore.
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THERE’S just no stopping John Terry at the moment.
Apparently, this week he picked up top prize at the Chelsea Flower Show as well.
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