When I wrote this about Fernando Torres’ industrious performance against Stoke City, I carved out the possibility that his form on that day could be a kind of dead cat bounce for a terminally declining player. His play in the following two matches (v West Bromwich Albion and Norwich City) suggests that might be the case. Distressingly, it seems Torres might be turtling back into the shell he occupied for large stretches of last season. As the chalkboards below indicate, Torres’ passes received have dramatically fallen off since he had 51 against Stoke on the opening weekend. And while he had 9 take-ons against Stoke and 10 versus WBA, he had a measly 2 (both lost) last BPL weekend. And it’s not just the stats that tell the story here, as anyone who’s watched Torres play for Chelsea will attest. Particularly, there was a moment in the 21st minute of the Norwich City match, when, having been played in by a nice slide-rule pass from Florent Malouda, Torres decided to cut back at the edge of the box and try to find Drogba with a pass rather than try to beat Ritche De Laet for pace. Though he nearly created a chance, this, for me, was a telling moment. Where, exactly, is the player who used to smoke Nemanja Vidic (never mind perennial United loanee De Laet) and score goals for fun against the Red Devils? Or how about the guy whose blazing speed helped him score the winner in the final of the 2008 European Championships? Sadly, I think the answer is becoming clear. That player, like those £50M, may be gone forever.
Paul Lambert was apparently pretty frosted at what he deemed to be the excessive exuberance displayed by some Chelsea staff after Ramirez won a penalty that ultimately lead to Frank Lampard’s match-winning goal. Really, the nerve of these continentals and their emotions. A look at how Norwich was positioned after equalizing, though, suggests Lambert should mostly be angry with himself. As the Chalkboard below indicates, Norwich maintained a high and narrow defensive line in the period after Holt evened the score. This unbalanced 1-8-1 seems like a particularly odd tactic for a recently promoted club who was well-positioned to leave Stamford Bridge with a point. What is more, it allowed Chelsea to attack from the wings and beat them on the counterattack, which they did in the build-up to Ramirez’s penalty-winning run into the box. Rather than play for the point, Lambert seemed to want to kick-on and win the match. It’s admirable when smaller clubs don’t park the bus, but sometimes discretion is the better part of, well, you know. Lambert got greedy and got burned.
