It's time for Chelsea to sell Fernando Torres

Fernando Torres has been in dismal form for Chelsea this season. Some fans will desperately cling to a few flashes of his old self, but in truth his goal scoring record does not lie. The Spaniard has scored a dismal two goals in 13 Premier League games for Chelsea this season and nobody can deny that this is simply not a good enough return for a striker at a club with Chelsea’s ambitions.

Is it then, finally time for Chelsea to stop persevering with Torres?

Torres’ Form This Season

As stated in purely goalscoring terms Torres has done very little to warrant a place in the Chelsea side. His link up is also not massively effective, despite the odd flash, for example his assist for Andre Schurrle in the 2-1 victory over Manchester City.

His link-up has consisted of an average pass accuracy of just 65%, a poor record for a striker, considering he averages so few passes per game,only managing a dismal 10 accurate passes per game for Chelsea, a limited contribution at best. Against Crystal Palace this was also the case with him completing just 12 passes, of which only two went forward and even those, as we can see below they were hardly penetrative of intelligent passes.

Torres has not been an effective foil for the three attacking midfielders and a lack of potency up top from him and his striking colleagues is causing problems for Jose Mourinho. Against Palace, he made no key passes and more generally has created just 12 chances for team-mates in his 13 appearances this term. While on the other hand, the Premier League top goalscorer Luis Suarez has created 42 chances for his team-mates in the same number of games as Torres.

In front of goal his fate has been equally bleak, managing to hit just 56% of his efforts on target, and converting just 12.5% of his chances. To put this into context, Luis Suarez has converted 27.5% of his chances with a shot accuracy of 64% (from far more efforts, having attempted 69 shots, compared to the 16 attempted by Torres.) Not only is Torres not accurate in front of goal, but he is also shot shy.

His tap in versus Crystal Palace was actually his only attempted shot all game:

Clearly, Torres simply is not enough of a goal threat, which is worrying for Chelsea given their lack of quality options up front. Chelsea’s number nine generally averages just 1.8 shots per game, even team-mate Samuel Eto’o who plays less, averages 2.8 shots per game (and has attempted five more shots from three less appearances). While Chelsea’s loaned out forward Romelu Lukaku has attempted an average of 3.2 shots per game.

Conclusion

What we can take from this brief analysis is that Fernando Torres is simply not good enough for Chelsea. His performances are average at best (utterly dismal at worst) and he can no longer justify a place in the squad. Any attempts to claim he is regaining his form is merely clutching at straws, his current form is the status quo now. It is now finally time for Chelsea to cut their losses with Torres, something they should have done along time ago.