Fernando Torres 'The Man', But Blues Open To Acquiring Another Forward

Buried in a Guardian article about how Chelsea are prepared to go into next season relying on Fernando Torres as their number one man is a big hint that Chelsea are not in fact prepared to go into next season relying on Fernando Torres as their number one man:

We may have two big centre‑forwards who score 25 or 30 goals for us next season and then maybe we'll improve on our sixth-placed finish in the league.

-Ron Gourlay, Chelsea CEO.

Tone's impossible to pick up from print, and I didn't get to see the press conference so Gourlay might be joking, but the Guardian seem to be interpreting this as him 'refusing to rule out' the club making a move for another striker this summer. That's pretty interesting, from my perspective, because I don't think that a striker is a need position as such - unless we sell Torres, which I don't think is happening. Are the club just being coy about their transfer plans?

The rest of Gourley's quotes are far more positive. The CEO was one of the ones who expressed disappointment in the timing of Torres' now-infamous comments after the Champions League win, citing poor timing, but now that the immediate annoyance has faded, he's being much more magnanimous:

Fernando Torres is the man that we will go forward with and Fernando Torres will score us the goals. Have no doubt that Fernando Torres is a world‑class centre-forward. We've just won the Champions League and Fernando Torres played his part in that. It's not all about goals. It's not just about the individual scoring goals ... Fernando's teamwork, he is a very, very important player. And I think you will see Fernando Torres score many goals for Chelsea.

I was in the dressing room afterwards with Fernando Torres and the rest of the players and there was nobody disappointed and there was no negativity around at all. From my point of view, it was blown out of proportion. He was disappointed that he didn't play and I think that led to the rest. Things are fine. There is no problem.

So. General positive as far as Torres is concerned but some mixed messages from the hierarchy. At this point I'd consider the putative Radamel Falcao for Torres and cash swap with Atletico Madrid highly unlikely, although with the amount of money Chelsea have on hand there are going to be rumours flying about basically everyone all summer.