The Trouble With Torres

Posted on 03. Sep, 2010 by Jon Snell in Blog

With 57 goals in 82 appearances, numerous records broken and a set of fans willing to leave their better halves for him (myself included), you will have to forgive me for saying so but Fernando Torres may be costing Liverpool FC dearly.

His exquisitely taken goal against West Brom was another reminder that in Torres, Liverpool still have one of the top strikers in world football. He has the ability to change games with the swing of a leg or the nod of a head and in the past three seasons has been Liverpool’s outstanding player without a shadow of a doubt. Even during his injury ravaged season of 09/10 his record of 22 goals in 32 games is truly astonishing. The problem we have with Torres is not his work rate, goals record or even his shiny new haircut- all of these things are outstanding. The trouble with Torres is the fact that no matter how hard his manager tries or who he buys, no striker in the world can play next to Fernando Torres.

As another transfer window shuts, another hole appears outside Melwood where a world class striker (other than Torres) should be signing shirts. The echos of last season are worrying. Liverpool fans spent the whole ten months (nay- eleven including the World Cup!) collectively joined in prayer when any opposition player came within five yards of our main man. David N’Gog is still our secondary striker and, as was proved last season and against Manchester City last week, he is not ready for that role despite all of his promise. N’Gog is currently a third striker at best. There needs to be a second. To look at Manchester City’s striking options in comparison to ours is enough to give up on any hopes of top four if Fernando becomes injured once again. Given the rigours of our Premier League, Liverpool fans need to continue praying as if Anfield was still God’s place to call home.

We were convincingly beaten by Manchester City. The pre-match excitement at Roy Hodgson’s expansive, attacking line-up gave us all a false feeling of confidence as we didn’t pay City the respect they deserved. Blinded by a formation Rafa wouldn’t have dreamed of playing, the 3-0 drumming was a real wake up call and an abrupt end to Hodgson’s honeymoon period. The confidence witnessed against Arsenal disappeared, the midfield was overrun by blue shirts and by the 80th minute we were all taking back the times we cursed Rafa for his repeated 4-5-1 formation. The last time Liverpool lost three goals without reply in the League was during the 07/08 season to Manchester United- a sign if there ever was one to get rid off 4-4-2 before it caused any more damage. Thankfully Roy learned his lesson that just because you put Steven Gerrard in his favoured central midfield position doesn’t mean he will dominate games on his own, and 4-5-1 returned against West Brom.

The performance of Torres against City showed us once again that he is unable to play alongside another striker. Be it David N’Gog or David Villa, the threat of Fernando Torres is majorly nullified when paired with a strike partner. Rafa attempted to find him a mate with every forward under the sun and the only one who succeeded in keeping his place in the team is the only one who accepted and embraced playing out of position on the wing, Dirk Kuyt.

During the World Cup, tournament specialist David Villa was at his usual summer time best while our Samson, with his freshly cropped hair seemed to cut a forlorn figure, eventually dropped to the bench for the games of importance. There was no doubt, as there never is with Torres, that he was working hard, he simply couldn’t adapt to the role of co-star. If this, and if Liverpool’s past few seasons have taught us anything it is to have a focal point, a star at the top of the tree behind which you have 10 men who are going to work their socks off to produce chances for their headliner. Chelsea have it with Drogba, Spain have it with Villa, United had it with Ronaldo and have it with Rooney. 4-5-1 works, better than any formation of recent times. Its ability to adapt to 4-3-3 at any given time enables the team to switch between attack and defence in an instant. It simply takes sacrifice and the patience of another world-class striker to play the waiting game until your headliner is out of action.

Whereas Liverpool have their headliner, they do not have someone waiting to replace him once our prayers go unanswered. The intimidation of seeing Fernando Torres in front of you in the pecking order has already frightened off Crouch, Keane, Bellamy and prevented many others from joining our ranks. Why we have not made a serious offer for Roman Pavlyuchenko is a mystery. He seems content warming the bench in order to receive his sack of loot and is an out and out striker in a similar vein to Torres when he plays his annual Carling Cup games for Spurs. Maybe that is question for the Americans or maybe he is another who has realised the difficulty of being a striker at Liverpool when their fans have fell so deeply for their current number nine that there are big, big boots to fill.

Like the girlfriend you love, you’re not going to leave her just because you believe you can do better… Liverpool are not going to let Fernando Torres go in order to make room for others, even if it costs us the league. He is one of us.

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16 Responses to “The Trouble With Torres”

Lucas

03. Sep, 2010

N’gog shouldn’t be our secondary striker, we have jovanovic, kuyt and babel. shouldn’t these be tried in their natural positions before we spend millions on another striker?
Michael Khalilian

03. Sep, 2010

Babel should be tried up front with Torres. I just don’t understand how N’gog gets the nod over Babel most times when it’s so obvious Babel is much more of a scoring threat, not to mention he helps us out in the style department…which is something we could use these days. In regards to 4-4-2, Roy simply played it at the wrong time. Away to City isn’t the time to play that formation while at home to west brom is. I disagree with you completely on that. The fact that Roy played 4-5-1 at home to West Brom frankly scares me and scenes of all those games last year when we couldn’t break down weaker teams comes back to me.
kopfan23

03. Sep, 2010

i agree that it isn’t the 4-4-2 formation, it’s who he plays in that formation…against city we played the 4-4-2 with gerrard and lucas in the center….this is why the 4-4-2 failed….this is also why the 4-2-3-1 failed last season…it’s not that the positions are wrong, it’s that lucas can’t defend or track a run to save his dick! the 4-2-3-1 was brilliant the 08-09 season when gerrard could trust xabi and mascherano to defend properly so he could stay in attack with nando…but he could trust xabi and mascherano WAY more than he could trust lucas and mascherano, bringing him back to cover for lucas’ shite defending, leaving torres alone up top to be frustrated (and knocked) by the back four…the best team i can think of for this season (considering the lack of striker and winger depth) is:

___________________reina______________________

johnson____carragher________agger_______konchesky

babel________gerrard_______meireles_______j.cole

________________kuyt_____torres________________

this would give us pace and creativity on the wings (sorry to kuyt and jovanovic, but work rate doesn’t equal every thing on the wing, and i think jovanovic is a little too predictable on the left)…or seeing as j.cole is still suspended, we could play the 4-2-3-1 against birmingham:

________________reina_________________

johnson_____carragher___agger_____konchesky

__________meireles______poulsen________

_______kuyt_____gerrard______babel____

______________torres_____________

i would admit that i’ve been upset with babels performances as i was expecting more from him but i think he (like a lot of the liverpool players) was frustrated under benitez because he didn’t play as much as he probably should have (for example: he helped destroy real madrid in the 08-09 season in the second leg of the CL)…i think this is his year to step up…and for strikers who would be able to play with torres i think the list would include kuyt, keane (unfortunate he didn’t really get a chance), obafemi martins, tevez, and klose (though these players would be hard to get, just saying he can have a strike partner)…YNWA
- kopfan23
  
  03. Sep, 2010
  
  “it’s not that the formations* are wrong”…my bad
commonsense

04. Sep, 2010

well said kopfan23!!a lil bit of luck&confidence wich ran out under rafa&we cud see a diff side altogether…..&mr snell,do you realy think crouch,keane or bellemy could replace torres? if its that easy,why not take man citys cash and buy all 3& end of problem….the rest of the lads havnt bin good enough and i dnt think that is down to torres!we trusted in rafa& he gave us kuyt{who for all his qualities just hasnt the pace needed}& benayoun{after garcia should never have bin the type of player recruited}&riera&babel who only he knows why he didnt play&A.Villa have milner&young{who cost just a litle more than kuyt&benayoun}on there wings…..&even then,if nando hadnt got injured we’d be talking about a diff history….so lets not start forgetin,our knees hurt coz we woz prayin we wudnt have to replace him!
np

04. Sep, 2010

i think one player that could make devastating partner with torres as a forward is totti .but he will not come beside he is already very old another one promising partner is dani but not now may be in two years another one is babel – we need to through him upfront and see our self how good their partnership will be. beside milan and cole will also be a good partner i dont know if their presence will lose the focus of defender from him. and certainly they cant replaced him if he got injured so we might need a experience forward with physical strength and vision in next transfer market hope we got far better owner before that. but as a team we are pretty much covered for 6 month btu we certainly need ore quality player not just to improve our team but also raise the moral one top striker and another good midfielder will scare hell out of our rival only if lucas and jay spearing couldnot improve and show that they belong in the team.
TG

04. Sep, 2010

2 more lastnight for Spain means he has scored 3 goals in 2 games, so he is getting fitter by the day. Let’s hope our Sports Science dept can keep him fit.
Tgan

04. Sep, 2010

Roy never wanted to play 4-4-2 at City, Poulsen wasn’t fit so we were going to play Torres with Gerrard off him and Mascha holding. Then the day of the game the bomb went off, this meant Gerrard in midfield with Ngog helping Torres due to fitness concerns.

That was a freak night for many reasons, we look very solid at the back in most games without zonal marking, when everyone really is fully fit i think we will be a match for anyone. We will see 4-4-2 at home and 4-5-1 away im sure!!!!
Ritesh

05. Sep, 2010

NO matter which formation we play,I would love to see us win at home and not lose away.I would love to see El Nino and Gerrard combination causing trouble to the strongest of our opponents..Now as our no. 9 is returning back to his best,it must have definitely caused some fear to our rivals..And thats what I would love to see…
Charled

06. Sep, 2010

The only reason we lost to city is that we had mental and phisical probems, poulsen injured and macherano be an idiot costed us 3 easy points. Against west brom we plyaed well at the back and attacked well. We had many chances but like usual. we cant finish. Babel would be great supporting of torres. And i think the team we have is the strongest in the bpl mass wise. which was our problem last year. here is a good lineup with a strong bench.

REINA
JOHNSON CARRAGHER AGGER KONCHESKY
POULSEN
MEIRELES
KUYT COLE
GERRARD
TORRES

BENCH: JONES(GK), NGOG, BABEL, JOVANOVIC, SKRTEL, MAXI, AURELIO

RESERVES: KYRGIAKOS, LUCAS, SPEARING, ECCESLTON ETC…..

as you can see our bench and starting eleven is all good quality players. this is why this year we should finIsh even top 3. Even some of our resereves are good enough to start in our starting eleven. this mean we dont have to rely so much on exaclty eleven players like last year, well done roy.
Charled

06. Sep, 2010

___________________REINA__________________________JOHNSON_____CARRAGHER_AGGER___KONCHESKY_________________________POULSEN_____________________________________MEREILES________________________ KUYT_______________________________________COLE __________________GERRARD_____________________________________TORRES________________________

This is how the formation would be, the one above got messed up
Charled

06. Sep, 2010

___________________REINA__________________________JOHNSON_____CARRAGHER_AGGER___KONCHESKY_________________________POULSEN_____________________________________MEREILES________________________ KUYT_______________________________________COLE __________________GERRARD_____________________________________TORRES________________________

This is how the formation would be, the one above got messed up.
Charled

06. Sep, 2010

i give up, but you get the point
Charled

06. Sep, 2010

————————————REINA————————————-
JOHNSON——CARRAGHER——AGGER——KONCHESKY

——————————–POULSEN———————————–
—————————MEREILES—————————————
KUYT———————————————————-COLE-
————————–GERRARD————————————
——————-TORRES————————————–

OK THIS SHOULD WORK
topscout

06. Sep, 2010

i wud use two formations ie

home games 4 3 3, onus on the home team to attack

reina
kelly carra agger konchesky
johnson poulson meireles
sg torres cole

away games 4 1 41
reina
johnson carra agger konchesky
poulson
cole sg meireles jovanic
torres
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