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On the day after the Chelsea became European champions for the first time in their history, Guillem Balague had a series of extraordinary quotes attributed to Fernando Torres in his Twitter feed. Look at this!
It’s contradictory because I feel like I’m at a peak moment in my career, with more desire and hunger than I’ve felt in a long time, but I’ve had to spend the final on the bench. It was a huge disappointment when I saw the lineup, perhaps the biggest in my life. This season I have felt things that I never had before. I’ve felt like they treated me in a way that I didn’t expect...not in the way that was spoken of when they signed me. We’ve had a lot of talks and we’ll talk about my future because the role I’ve had this season is not for me, nor is it the one I expected to play when I came here.
I’m not comfortable. I want them to tell me what is going to happen in the future. Football has been fair on us, on me. Now I do feel like football is worth it, but I’ve been through a difficult time, the worst in my career. Dont want that again. I need the club to tell me what is going to happen and what sort of role I will have within the team, what my duties are.....what the club expects of me. And then judge whether it is worth it.
Wow.
It's difficult to know what to make of this. The quotes from Torres are completely out of place compared to his elated post-game reaction, but much of it makes perfect sense. Of course he was disappointed not to be selected for the biggest game in the club's history and I can't imagine any competitive athlete being pleased about the sort of season Torres has had. His comments, if true, are mostly understandable.
I also want to give him the benefit of the doubt, because he wasn't completely useless for us this season. His goal at the Camp Nou will give me tingles every time I see it for the rest of my life, and he's always looked like he's trying incredibly hard even when his footballing competence deserted him for large stretches of his career.
Buuuuuuut. He plays for a team that has just won the Champions League. While he was on the pitch. Sure, he didn't take any of the five penalties, but he was right there, participating in the biggest night in the club's history, winning the European Cup with us. Presumably, this was the trophy he wanted when he joined the club from Liverpool.
So why the hell isn't he being a little happier? It's not like Chelsea were unfair to him - he was crap for most of the season and a different striker has been deservedly selected over him in the final. His confidence has clearly been shot and there are better penalty kick takers. Does anyone really think that Torres should have been taking a penalty over David Luiz or Ashley Cole? Does Torres think he'd have done better than Mata, who's actually one of our set penalty takers? Come on.
So yeah, if this isn't good enough for you, Fernando, we'd be more than happy to discuss your future elsewhere. You've had a couple of great moments for the club, no doubt, but you have come nowhere near close to fulfilling your end of the bargain. £50M, Chelsea paid to get you, plus almost £10M for every season that goes by. When you live up to even a tenth of that price tag, we can talk about your future and whether it's 'worth' it.