José Mourinho has once again reiterated that Chelsea do not plan to sign a striker this January. The trio of Fernando Torres, Samuel Eto’o, and Demba Ba have struggled to score goals, but Chelsea have been able to sustain their title challenge due to goals from midfielders.
Eden Hazard has particularly been impressive this campaign with 13 goals already, but José has admitted that having a regular goal-scoring striker would have seen Chelsea top the table by now.
Despite the lack of such a player, he says that Chelsea have full faith in Torres and will continue to support him. According to Sky Sports, he said:
“Fernando is calm. He knows we are not going into the market now.
“In the summer, normally a club like Chelsea is always trying to improve and get new players but he knows that we like him and support him and he knows there is no problem.
Torres has started 2014 in brilliant fashion with two league goals in consecutive matches, but he has gone on such runs before. It remains to be seen if he can sustain it over the course of a campaign. Despite continuing his public support of Torres, Mourinho has continued by saying that strikers need to remain the main source of goals for a team. He continued:
“Everyone needs strikers to score goals; the strikers are the goalscorers.
“If you have players in other positions who can score an important number of goals – better. If you have a Frank Lampard – better. If you have Eden Hazard – better. But the strikers are the ones that normally score the goals.”
Torres’ problems in front of goal partly appear to stem from his lack of confidence and also the team not playing to his strengths. He has largely been used as a battering ram to hold up the ball and Torres is not the player to do that.
His goal against Hull City reminded people of his strengths. He is extremely good when running against defenders and scoring with clinical efforts. His pace makes him an excellent asset against teams defending high up the pitch. It is now up to the midfielders to take advantage of his renewed confidence and make him the hugely potent striker that he once was.
