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So, um, this is a strange story to be writing. According to Goal.com, Chelsea loanee Tomas Kalas has had a random (if not entirely undeserved) pop at Fernando Torres while praising Vitesse Arnhem teammate Wilfried Bony.
Chelsea need a player like Wilifried [sic] Bony at the moment. Torres is always moving and works hard, but he is not strong enough to lead the line. I'm sorry for Torres, but that's my personal opinion.
-Source: Goal.com via Daily Mail.
Leaving aside the actual content of the quote for a second, there are three explanations for why this quote is floating around. They are as follows:
- Tomas Kalas is a complete and utter idiot
- Goal.com are incompetent
- Goal.com are lying
Considering it's Goal.com, essentially the epitome of evil in football writing, I'm going to go with a mixture of 2 and 3. I doubt Kalas would have said anything like that on the record, and whether it's a straight-up lie or a woeful mistranslation from Czech.
But anyway, since the Wilfried Bony question has come up... well, it would be an interesting move for Chelsea. While he's not quite as young as the summer reinforcements, at 23 the Ivorian would still represent a sensible youth investment, and he wouldn't be nearly as pricey as, say, an Edinson Cavani or a Radamel Falcao.
There are some questions about how well goals in the Eredivisie translate to the Premier League, but his record for Vitesse (27 goals in 48 league appearances) is good enough that we should be sniffing around. His highlights from last year are pretty fun watching too:
Right now, Torres isn't doing enough to secure a place in the club's long-term plans. Why wouldn't Chelsea be interested in potentially adding Bony to the mix? It's not like we've gone too wrong with Ivorian centre forwards in the past.