I am sure you want to be reading this about as much as I want to be writing about it. Yes, behind what Mad Mario has been up to this week, it is the most talked about issue in English football – you’ve guessed it – Torres and Carroll, and what can be done to get more out of the players. Well given that I have just finished writing my awards for 2011, and both feature in the biggest disappointments category, I would suggest the kindest thing to do for both – bar taking a pair of scissors to Carroll’s ludicrous ponytail – is to suggest early retirement.
On a more serious note, it is a valid question (I begrudgingly suppose) to ask if both AVB and King Kenny are going the right way about getting the most out of the strikers by offering only cameo appearances and effectively relegating them to the bench.
Footballers, and forwards especially, have fragile egos, and being confined to the bench for most games is not something that is very likely to get the best out of them, and neither are in the mould of a super sub, needing to feel loved and wanted at a club to get the max from them, not to mention at least 70 minutes of the game.
That being said, if it is a choice between relegating my team or an overpriced donkey, I know which one I would pick. You cannot play a striker who neither scores nor assists, and especially with AVB’s situation over the last couple of months, I would no more advise a starting role for Torres than I would for John Terry to win citizen of the year.
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At the start of the season, AVB did give Torres a chance to be his main man, yet Torres did not deliver, and whilst his movement improved to the stage where it resembled a donkey with two legs not just one, it was still abysmal and after a stupid red card against Swansea, the emergence of Sturridge and the realisation by AVB that Drogba is and always should be the main man, Torres has found chances to prove himself wanting.
Likewise with Carroll, after failing to do much with the chances given to him by King Kenny, you cannot really crucify the manager for not wanting to play someone less likely to score than every other forward the club possesses – including a very talented Mr Suarez? In fact, Carroll has three more yellow cards than he does goals this season.
Ironically enough, both clubs may find themselves forced to play their expensive flops in the coming weeks – Drogba will be off for the best part of two months for the African Nations and should the Suarez ban stand for 8 games, Liverpool may find themselves a striker short.
With both clubs now fully aware that buying for big bucks in January does not guarantee anymore goals than standing over a toilet with your millions, pouring it down and then flushing, both may be wary of entering the market exactly a year after making the worst buys in recent memory.
For Torres and Carroll, a chance to prove themselves may well come around again, and with first team football looking likely – even though it is more of an enforced selection than anything else – each can show the world exactly why they were worth the hefty price tags paid for them.
The chances of this happening? About as high as me going out and buying a Barcelona shirt. Less than zero.
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