Chelsea want to offload Fernando Torres this summer and will take a £30 million hit by doing so, according to The Sun‘s Rob Beasley.
The Spanish forward has picked up a number of prestigious medals during his time at Stamford Bridge and justified his personal decision to sign for the club but despite having his best season with 22 goals, it can hardly be described as a successful signing for Chelsea.
Torres has scored just seven times in the Premier League this season and hasn’t scored a goal in the league since the 8-0 demolition of Aston Villa back in December, could today’s match against Everton be his last one?
Rafael Benitez let slip to Spanish radio that Chelsea are going to invest heavily in the summer and the manager will have a great environment to come into. Undoubtedly a significant portion of those funds will be spent on a big name forward with Edinson Cavani, Wayne Rooney and Radamel Falcao being linked with a move to West London. If one of those lads do come in then I can’t see the next manager or club being keen to retain Torres in addition.
He has been better than he’s ever been for us and has shown signs that he has life in him, it’s also a good time to cut our losses on him because he has regained some of his previous value.
But who will take him? The forward pockets around £170,000-a-week in wages which is high even when taking his valuable image rights into the equation, so any move is likely to be subsidised by the Blues (either by lump sum or wage subsidy) but it could be a loss as they are willing to take as an alternative to paying him those wages in full over the remaining three years of his contract.
Torres has recently said that he finally feels important at Chelsea, is happy and keen to do better in the future. But as we all know, it isn’t really up to him if the man upstairs thinks otherwise.
Sell him or keep him? What’s next for Torres?
Source: The Sun
Although he’s at his peak form for us, his current wages are too high if we want to include another hi-profile/wage player. If he would take a 75-100k week pay cut then yeh-we keep him. Otherwise, ciao Fernando. It’s been nice but the taxis waiting !
He is playing as a top striker again and if we sign another with the team likely to play 60+ games again next year that will allow us to give more threatening possibilities. Too much has been made out of him not scoring in the Premier League but that is also because Ba got the majority of starts because he couldn’t play Europe and Benetiz would rotate his strikers. Torres has been one of our top players and deserves respect as he will continue to grow.
If it was me I would sell Ba bring back Lukaka and get Edson or Rooney and play each 40-45 games
Torres played a part in all but 2 of our Premier League games and started 28 of them, so it wasn’t because Ba had more starts.
I’d sell Torres (this is the best he’s going to get and perfect time to sell) and Ba.
You can’t have a £170,000-a-week forward on your books if you want to sign a Cavani or Falcao. I’d loan out Lukaku again, I think his West Brom spell is testimony to the fact he benefits from regular football and is still a little rough around the edges. Could pick up a back-up forward, like a Hernandez, that will do a much better job than Ba.
Would rather have Torres than Ba tbh. Ba just hasn’t clicked after his initial burst – no pace, can’t beat a man and took too long to set himself to shoot today. Agree with Torres taking a pay cut but unlikely. Threadbare upfront esp if Lukaku goes on loan again so at least two strikers required plus Torres and Schurrle
It isn’t a question of Torres or Ba. The beauty of having choice means you don’t need to put up with either.
Torres has been inconsistent and at the top level you can’t afford such inconsistency I can’t see mourinho wanting to keep him if I had to pick a player to come to chelsea it would be lewandoski he fits into the kind of forward mourinho likes falcao is way to expensive cavani would suit man city send lukaku on loan again to polish him up what
we desperatly need is a holding and defensive midfielder we lost the prem because of our central midfield
Same here, Bob. There is no way Mourinho wants to take on that burden. Imagine another season of ‘can he get Torres back to his best’ rubbish. For a long time this season Torres was the main topic, a distraction and for all the wrong reasons.
Scoring goals is not the primary problem at hand. We have enough people around the park that can & do score regularly & score well! Retaining the ball as well as retaking the ball through the midfield is however our problem. Torres does a mediocre job of distraxting defenders, they keep an eye on him, but because his workrate is not £75k+ a weeks worth so they do not have to stick to him too tightly. So sell Torres take the capital hit then use the wages to fund good young holding/defending midfielder/s & young hungry striker/s to run defenders ragged, split them up and let the others through to score. But as I’m not a fat Spanish waiter nor am I a Russian oligarch with a life size Subuteo set so what do I know! I’m just Blue FOREVER.
Scoring hasn’t been our problem and sometimes we can run teams ragged and beat them by several. But the main difference between us and United is van Persie.
If you have a forward that is capable of nicking the games it makes a huge difference. When Chelsea were hot the mids did excellently but when we were cold you need a forward to steal points.
Our major problem this season was the pivot position we picked without the right holding mildfielders(Lampard is a player that is so goal conscious but his marking ability is extremely poor leaving the defence line vulnerable). Torres is improving but we can’t rely on him if we must win major trophies next season
Benitez hinted at three or four when talking about next season under the new manager, so I’m guessing your midfield wants will be looked at also.
100% keep him! He ain’t scored a lot in the pl but has only scored about 10 less then van persie in all completions, and if as expected mourinho comes back to the bridge I’d like to see what he can do with him. He is known to get the best out of players and if he can do that with torres then.we are actually saving ourselves money. I would give him at least till january
And pay someone as unreliable as Torres £30m over the next three years?
Why would we give him until January? A window notorious for poor deals. If he’s so poor between August and January then we would have wasted the best opportunity to sell him this summer.
This is as good as it’s going to get with Torres. Too many false dawns, ship him whilst he has some value.