One of the news headlines that interested me today, was that of Carlo Ancelotti asking Andre Villas-Boas to get rid of Didier Drogba, so Fernando Torres can prosper.
“Coaching Chelsea in the midst of a major generational change is complicated,” Ancelotti who now coaches in France said. “Look at Torres and his crisis. If you decide you are going to invest in him, you have to sell Drogba.”
How ironic. Maybe it is instructive we state here for emphasis and purpose of logic that the former AC Milan coach was in charge of the Chelsea when they shelled out £50million for the Spaniard. After splashing out what remains a British record for the former Liverpool man, he tried all possible formations to accommodate both Torres and Drogba, but failed woefully on every occasion.
If Villas-Boas had gotten rid of Drogba as soon as he came in, he possibly would have followed him out by now. Torres has yet to rediscover that form that made him one of England and Europe’s dreaded front men during his time at Anfield.
“Didier is like Pippo Inzaghi at Milan,” Ancelotti further explained. “He tends to swallow up all his competitors. It is not because they are evil, they are just like that.”
In one statement, he managed to say two different and unrelated things. At AC Milan, Inzaghi always played as a lone striker. When Ancelotti became fed up with trying to play both Drogba and Torres together, he resorted to playing one of them at a time. While the Ivorian shone when he was handed his chance, the Spanish forward continued to flop.
In my opinion, both players are completely different players. Drogba makes the most of his physical presence and pace to lead the line while Torres is the sort that loves the ball to be played in between lines for him to run onto – which is why he was scoring for fun playing alongside Steven Gerrard.
I dare say the new Paris Saint Germain coach is still obsessed with Chelsea – in a way that even a certain Portuguese who now coaches Real Madrid is not. Only early this week, he spoke about waiting for either the Spurs or Arsenal bench to become vacant, so he could take up another London job just to spite Roman Abramovich. Maybe he should invest all the energy into his new club, where the owners also have a lot of cash to spend, and like the Russian, expect results and trophies.
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