Dear Fernando Torres

Nice article.I too love chelsea and torres from my heart and soul and once I want to see the old torres gliding past defenders and scoring.Injuries and a loss of confidence have taken their toll on Torres.I agree with you thr miss against united was the turning point.The chelsea system doesn't support torres all the midfielders want to keep the ball too much and score themselves.At liverpool gerrard and alonso used to supply the final balls for torres but at chelsea he doesn't get the ball too much and now as mourinho has started preferring ba this will hurt torres even more.My only wish is to see torres firing again and I hope he scores against atletico madrid in the ucl semis. Go chelsea go torres ktbffh

I think torres will be included in the deal to bring costa.Simeone said he won't stop costa from going anywhere and he would love to have torres back.Torres is already a hero at atletico madrid,so it would be a perfect start that he needs.

Ive heard him and Mourinho dont get on, but whether or not that is true is anyones guess. If i were him, I'd be pretty annoyed being sent on loan again. I dont like Chelsea so id be glad to see him sign for the toffees permanently.

Stevie I respect your thoughts on El Nino.But I have only I thing to say thatyes Torres is not the same player as he was when he was at Liverpool & Atletico, but one cannot blame him that he has not worked hard.Everytime he went into the field for the blues he had given everything.Yes he is not firing as he used to but the model in which chelsea play is too some extent responsible. ThisIis because at Liverpool or Atletico he was the focal point of all attacks.The end product was his prolific form.In Chelsea most of the attacking players are ball players and everybody is willing to score ehich is great for the teams prospective but not for the player.Torres needs final passes which heused to get from Gerrard, Xabi Alonso at Liverpool. This season bulk of yhe goals scored by Liverpool are from Suarez, Sturridge.But in Chelsea we have more potential goal scorers in the likes of Hazzrd, Oscar, Ramires, Willian, Salah, Lampard.The model in which Chelsea plays is something very great for a side but sometimes it doesn't work out for an out & out striker.I hope heends his career on a high at Chelsea winning the EPL as well UCL.I will be praying for El Nino to return to his prolific goal scoring form at Chelsea or if he moves to Inter or Atletico.Fernando is an inspiration for me.May be he will be dropped from Spains World cup squad but still waiting for him to excel.I really respect your article.I am too a LIVIVING FOR THE BLUES FAN as my fiance.We love to see Torres scoring.

Hello, nice article you have there. I just wanted to add that I'm glad to Know that I'm not the only Fernando Torres fan still around I'm a Chelsea and Torres fan through thick and thin so it really makes me sad when my friends say that Torres is a sack.I know that Torres has had a tough time at the bridge but to me he is still my favourite soccer player(Messi comes second).I enjoy the games even more when Torres plays.The old Torres is still there he just needs a confidence boost from his fans,look at when he plays for Spain he dribbles defenders,speeds past them even goalkeepers and scores goals top goal scorer of the European Championship in 2012, he still has the skill and is still of the deadliest strikers in the world Fernando Torres.I hope that he will have successful future wherever he goes I will always support him.I hope that I will at least get to see my soccer hero, Torres play once in my life.Thanks for reading, I really appreciate it.:D

Hehehehehe!!! It's always great to reminisce! I'll never forget my 1st football game - CFC vs Sheffield Wednesday 28th Dec 1996 where I froze my balls off (having arrived from Sydney just 3 days earlier!) to see CFC totally dominate Sheff Wed and only got robbed by the ref who gave Sheff Wed not one but TWO penalties & disallowed not one but TWO CFC goals - not to mention that Sheff Wed equalised in the 90th min!!! :-§ It still bugs me to this very day!!! ;-)

Yeah, Inter could be an option - Mazzarri is looking to rebuild his squad for a tilt at the Top 3 in Serie A next year. Although they may not have the money for the kind of salary Torres is used to these days (struggling to meet the FFP rules I've read on ESPNFC). With regard to Cavani, I was thinking that particularly since Zlatan got injured, he's fallen out of favour somewhat (as he hasn't managed to carry PSG along) and given that they have so much attacking talent in Lavezzi & Rodriguez as well that they might be looking to re-jig their squad in light of the UCL exit at the Qtr-Final stage (a serious downer for their owners, I reckon). So maybe PSG won't be so tough in their negotiations that Hazard needs to be a part of any deal?? As you say though, the list of options isn't so long - after the mistakes you've listed, particularly Torres, I hope CFC wait a while on Falcao. Yes, he was unstoppable prior to his injury, but then again, we all thought the same about Torres before his! I'd be a bit wary of bringing someone from Serie A to the EPL - the list of great players who've flopped is just too great to ignore! So that leave really only La Liga & the Bundesliga as 'safe bets' as alternatives to buying from an EPL competitor. Ligue 1, Eredivisie and Jupiler League players would have a bigger step up in terms of making the impact CFC needs. So from those 3 leagues who do we realistically have as alternatives? In La Liga we have possibly, Karim Benzema (26yo) Real Madrid - whilst his contract runs until June 2015, he didn't have a great relationship with Mou so even with his impressive career stats it's probably not going to happen. Antoine Griezmann (23yo) Real Sociedad - maybe too much of an unknown, but a goal every 4 games for the past 5 seasons @ Real Sociedad (including 16 from 31 league games this season) means he could be about to take off. Carlos Bacca (27yo) Sevilla - Wouldn't come cheap as it's his 1st season there following a successful stint for Club Brugge, but more than a goal every 2nd game and 39 from his last 64 league games, means someone at CFC probably knows who he is. Diego Costa (25yo) Atleico Madrid - 54 goals in 128 appearences during his 4yrs in Madrid - as well as 10 in 16 whilst on loan to Rayo Vallecano in between means he could be the guy CFC go for. For the moment, I'm discounting that Barcelona can be involved in any transfers so hence no mention of Alexis Sanchez for instance. In the Bundesliga, we have possibly: Mario Mandzukic (27yo) Bayern Munich - with Lewandowski coming in the Northern Summer and Guardiola not really a proponent of 2 strikers, maybe there's an opening there? 46 goals in 83 appearances for Bayern is maybe something for CFC to force the issue on. Thomas Muller (24yo) Bayern Munich - as with Mandzukic, Guardiola will have to juggle Muller's role in the team and with his contract ending in June 2015, maybe Bayern will cash in on interest from the EPL. And so to the EPL, we have: Jay Rodriguez (24yo) Southampton - just busted his ACL so that could possibly scupper any deal given that CFC will want their main striker ready to go in the first game. Still has scored 15 goals from 33 games this season for Southampton. Loic Remy (27yo) Newcastle - To score 13 goals in 23 appearences in his 1st season is not a bad effort at all, but he could be the next Demba Ba too, so again who knows... Notable mentions: Radamel Falcao: Obviously was THE striker in European football (apart from Ronaldo & Messi who are more all-round SUPER attackers!) before he busted his knee and his season is over. 199 goals in 302 appearences is a sensational record and he is probably the favourite along with Diego Costa David Villa - realisticall he's too old and has resisted roumours before, but he's still doing the goods for Atletico so you never know. Robert Lewandowski - would have been perfect,but has signed for Bayern Munich so that's the fish that got away! Stefan Kiessling - his name has been bandied about before, but I don't know enough about how he plays to comment upon his suitability to CFC. Partick Aubemeyang - 54 goals in 119 appearences over the past 2 and a bit seasons for Saint Etienne & Borussia Dortmund isn't too bad.

haha cheers mate, good man! The funny thing with Cavani is that the last few games he has played as a striker (since Ibra got injured) haven't been convincing at all, against you know who last week and Lyon on the w-e, and I have started reading that Blanc and the Qatari had been slightly disappointing. More and more "with Ibra we would have won" comments form the fans too. So depending on how the end of the season goes, the Qatari might be open to selling Cavani at a good price. Plus he has always said he didn't like playing on the wing at PSG and he knows than Ibra wont move so maybe there is a possibility there. Another one who might want to move to Chelsea is Falcao at Monaco. Again he has been talking to other clubs and if Chelsea offers big money I reckon he could also be interested. Dunno if I told you before but Chelsea is actually the EPL team I follow the most, firstly because Paris supporters have always had close ties with Chelsea (well we had the same 'hard core' fans in the 90s, although I didn't agree with what they stood for) and secondly because I was/am a big fan of John King the writer who is also a huge fan of Chelsea and in the late 90s early 2000s I read all his books about football violence and England's social problems (including the trilogy Football factory, England away and Headhunters). Lets be clear I didn't condone that but I just had a fascination for 'firms' then, and I was still in Europe, in my 20s etc. But am cured now :) hahaha. But if you are a Chelsea fan, go for it (have goosebumps just thinking about it now!!). Irvine Welsh also wrote some good stuff re football and was, if I remember well, a big Hibs fan.

Nice one Steven! Agree it looks like all Chelsea strikers have been jinxed in recent times. Maybe its also something to do with Chelsea's public, dunno. They are probably a bit harsher than at other clubs. Have the impression Liverpool fans for example have been behind guys like Suarez even when he wasn't doing too well. Strikers need to feel that their coach, team mates and supporters are behind them no matter what and some of them are more fragile than others, Torres may be one of them. He rarely smiles and his body language says it all. Its a tough one.

@ Steven McBain: Firstly, nice article - I thought you might mention good old Tore Andre Flo also, but I guess his record was actually ok compared to the other you mentioned! I too have been hoping & wishing Fernando on and thought he has turned the corner sooooo many times only to disappointed by the false dawn. What I think was the turning point for the worse was his knee injury - he's never been the same player since and that's not so surprising really given how we hear about that happening to many other players too. It'll be interesting to see if another reported CFC target in Falcao comes back to his best from his knee-reconstruction or whether he'll be another Torres! Personally, I'd like CFC to break the bank on Cavanni - he's obviously 2nd behind Zlatan @ PSG, so he could be tempted by a big money deal - he's got form (although outside of the EPL) over a number of seasons and would represnt a good fit into what Mou is trying to build in London. Whilst I think Lukaku is a good player, I can't see him really making it @ CFC - Mou has moved away from his Drogba-style striker system so Lukaku seems to represent a money-making asset, IMO.

Youd want to hope Lukaku stays....