When he signed for the club in January 2011, the £50million fee was – and remains to date – the record amount paid by a British club for a player. Less than two and a half years later it appears that the patience of the club has finally been exhausted. Reportedly the favourite player of owner Roman Abramovich, he now appears friendless among the Stamford Bridge hierarchy, and with Jose Mourinho poised for the second coming in a few weeks, the end of the road may well be in sight.
Sunday’s edition of The Sun reports that Chelsea are prepared to write off a cool £30million to close the book on the less than illustrious career of the Spaniard for the club. Given that the season just completed could be argued to have been his best – netting 22 goals in all competitions – it may have been that the club would give him one more season. Talk is however that Mourinho has other plans lined up for the striking element of his squad.
It would have been interesting to have been a fly on the wall if, or when, the conversation took place between Mourinho and whichever of Abramovich’s entourage was deployed to discuss player strategy. Doubtless it would have been the oligarch’s ideal solution for the incoming manager to work the oracle and reinvent the Torres of old. If The Sun’s story is true however, the Portuguese probably thought that it was a task beyond even the limits of that awesome ego.
In fairness, you can cut statistics many ways to support an argument, but it’s fairly damning to say that each of the 34 goal that the Spaniard has scored in his over 130 appearances for the club, taking his £170,000 per week wages into account, have cost in the region of £2million apiece. I know that goals are a valuable commodity, but that’s probably stretching things somewhat.
Clearly, nothing is certain, but the story appears to have legs. If Torres is shipped out at a loss this summer, it appears likely that it will be against his will. In each of his interviews, he has expressed a wish to stay at Stamford Bridge, but with a new revolution on the cards, it may be an unrequited love, as the club appears to have decided that a divorce is the best way forward. For the fans, who shown amazing loyalty to Torres, it may be a bit of a relief and new heroes may well be around the corner.
Source: DSG
