The January transfer window is imminent, moves are being planned and pre-planned and in swift attempts to shift deadwood for “transitional phases”, players are being told they can leave. One player to already fall victim to age discrimination in the workplace, is 32-year old Nicolas Anelka, who has been told he doesn’t feature in Chelsea’s long term plans under Andre Villas-Boas, stating that, “the club has decided to work with Chelsea’s players of the future and I have accepted this.” Just how long Villas-Boas has to regiment his troops, fluctuates with the week and whether or not his vice-captain on the field of duty, Frank Lampard, is starting, or if his captain’s racially slurring his way through games next to an incompetent David Luiz.
However, as the fashionable debonair critic slayer continues to slay critics fashionably, whilst remaining debonair, ” the talent of this team is not in question,” he told reporters a week after having to defend his team’s talents, “this has been a continuous persecution of Chelsea, continuous aggression of one club. We have become your target. We have to accept it,” in the background, he’s been ushering players out of the door quietly. Some are, understandably, reluctant and are holding on to the door frame Winston-Bogarde-style.
A further five players could be set to follow Nicolas Anelka out of Stamford Bridge, however unlikely to do so in the wage-increasing style the Frenchman is, with a new path in his career in China with Shanghai Shenhua starting in January. Ivorian pair Drogba and Kalou have apparently been offered a way out, as well as the already transfer-listed Alex and Portuguese defensive duo, Paulo Ferreira and Jose Bosingwa. One player not aging, not cheap and not expected as potentially on the transfer list is Fernando Torres.
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This isn’t because he’s top class, banging goals in week-in-week-out, or because he’s in high demand, this is because he cost Chelsea £50m less than a year ago. However, over thirty appearances later, Fernando Torres has spent much of his playing time in a pedestrian manner and has only scored five times. In a career that could be valued at £395,480.00 a goal, spreading his total transfer fees over his total goal count, he has cost Chelsea over twenty times that, at £10m a goal. If they do want to get shot of him, it’s to cut their losses, not make a profit.
The rumoured fee for the European Championships and World Cup medalist is as little as £20m, £30m less than Chelsea acquired him for from Liverpool, and the same fee at which the Merseyside club brought him for, before enjoying his services 81 times in front of goal in 142 appearances. At 27-years old, his career is far from over, and many a player has slumped mid-career, before reinvigorating themselves elsewhere.
It should be no different for a player that was arguably up there with the best just a few years ago. Signing him would be a gamble, but it could be a gamble that could see a player with class, just no form, signed at a cut-price deal with the ability to quickly prove his weight in gold.