Drogba Vs Torres

About 10 days back one of my friends asked me who was the best striker in the premiership. I replied Drogba and we had a slight debate about Torres or Drogba. This was just one day before the Liverpool VS Chelsea game. Then again the same question came up on the pre match discussion where John Dykes asked Steve McMahon the same question but in slightly different ways. First question asked was that if given a choice to have one of these two in your team, which would you pick. To this Mr. McMahon answered Torres. Then next question after some discussion was who will have the bigger impact on this game. To this Mr. McMahon replied Drogba.

Well its really difficult question to decide who is the better of the two, but one thing is sure, these are the top 2 strikers of the premiership. I can think of Rooney and Adebayor who can challenge them but on current form and past performances Drogba and Torres are definately ahead of them. Also in comparison to others they have come quite cheap (Drogba- 24 million pounds, Torres- 20 million pounds, Robinho-32.5 million pounds, Berbatov-30 million pounds and Shevchenko-31 million pounds)

Fernando José Torres Sanz is presently one of the hottest properties in world football. His tally of 46 goals from 64 games is an indicator of the fact that he is a proven goalscorer and can score goals with both his feets and his head.Possesing great speed, he has the ability to run at people and beat defenders. Earlier he was criticised as needing too many chances to score goals but after his move to Liverpool, all his critics has been silenced by his performances.

Drogba is a very different than Torres. He does not have the ability to beat players but he compensates it with his strength. He is big and strong and bullies defenders. His strength and hold up play enables Chelsea to succesfully employ the long ball directly to Drogba. On his day he can be inspirational. He succesfully guided Ivory Coast to the 2006 World Cup Finals and also guided them to their second African Cup of Nations (he was the top scorer in that tournament). But when not his day, he can be equally bad. A proof of his unpredictabilty is the 07-08 Champions League, where he inspired Chelsea to a win against Liverpool in the semis scoring two goals, but got red carded in the finals. He is also sunned for his theatrical style and propensity to dive.

So after all this, i come back to the question regarding who is better. Well this is really a tough one but if you can manage him Drogba is definately the better of the two. If you can’t he is nothing as prooved under Scolari. This was vindicated by his performance against Liverpool recently where he set up two goals. As said by McMahon, he is the one who can have the bigger impact an a game but only if you can manage him.