Should Chelsea keep banking on Torres as their main striker?

Can Fernando Torres be the main man for Chelsea? Can he be the one to replace the legendary Drogba? Can he justify his 50 million price tag?

These questions were running in the minds of each and every Chelsea fan out there. Unlike last season, Chelsea can’t afford to stick with Torres if he doesn’t perform. With the addition of players like Hazard , Marin and Oscar, Torres or his fans can’t complain about the lack of creativity in the Chelsea midfield .

Take a close look at Torres’ performances in previous matches. Does he look like a player who is out there to prove his worth? No, definitely not . He looked rather lazy and complacent in the last two matches ( Wigan & Reading ) and against Wigan, Torres showed a few moments of brilliance here and there but was caught offside numerous times in the match . His work-rate when compared to other players was very low in that match. His positional sense was not great either (throughout his career at Chelsea ).

Take a look at one incident where he won a header and passed the ball to Oscar allowing him to run through the wing with the ball. As a centre forward, Torres should continue his run into the box expecting an assist from Oscar or a rebound from his shot, but when Oscar fired that shot wide of the target , Torres was no where to be seen. This is not what the manager or the fans expect from a player for whom Chelsea paid 50 million pounds. This is not what they expect from a player in which their season hopes lie.

Against Reading, he scored a goal in the match thanks to Ashley Cole and the linesman. In that match, he lost possession of the ball numerous times. He showed no willingness to close down the defender or the opposition players. Also, he missed a close range header by heading it wide of target . However, his overall performance was a bit better than on previous occasions.

So far, banking on Torres alone seems to be a bad decision taken by the Chelsea side . Now that they’ve lost Drogba, Chelsea should sign a big goal-scoring center forward as soon as possible and as for Torres, he should stick with the team and play with more passion (rather than moaning about the service he gets and complaining about his exclusion from the starting line up). He should double his efforts in order to remain in first eleven or he must be prepared to be benched.