Torres blow but Blues are starting to shape up

THERE was one of those mass sharp intakes of breath around the stadium as Torres took off with both feet for that typical striker’s tackle on Saturday.

I’m not complaining about the red card — he barely touched him but that was more through luck than judgement and those are the kind of tackles we need eradicated.

It was incredibly frustrating as I could see Torres adding to the goal he’d already put away. Instead he misses three games. Good job Drogba’s fit again as we need to keep pace with the Manchesters even at this early stage of the season.

We saw the first signs of a spiky Villas-Boas this week. The criticism from a certain pundit following our loss to United hit a nerve. Unlike Mourinho, who would use press conferences and comments for carefully planned psychological mischief making — Villas Boas seemed genuinely irked. That, added to the complaint raised to the referees’ chief Mike Riley regarding the performance of the officials at United, demonstrates he is not a good and gracious loser. Then again, who wants a good loser at the helm of their football club?

Although the football is getting better week by week it still has an air of transition about it. I have never been on for analysing formations and tactics — my classifications consist of “exciting” and “not so exciting” and although AVB’s reign started with the latter, things are improving.

One player who has been constantly beneficial for the team no matter who is at the helm is Nicholas Anelka. AVB indicated the Frenchman wants to go, which surprises me as he has seemed the most settled and most contented at Chelsea than any of the many other clubs he has played at. I for one will be sorry to see him go as there are not many strikers who could/would play such an understated almost support striker role.

Hopefully by the time he leaves, this new style of ours with a more creative midfield will negate the need for that type of player as the service will be flying in from the wings — only time will tell.

Almost drawing as many column inches as Torres’ red card was Lampard’s exclusion. Although I imagine we will see him play a part this evening, I do hope that now his first team start is not a given he still sees his future at Stamford Bridge.

I imagine that despite his age, Lampard could walk into almost any team in the Premiership and demand a guaranteed start. But I would hate for him to go to some lesser club and play himself into the ground. I would rather see his experience used sparingly at Chelsea in very much the same way that Giggs is used at United.

He [unusually for a footballer] is an intelligent man — and one for whom ego does not dictate his decisions — with any luck he will complete his coaching badges and switch seamlessly into a coaching role and, who knows, perhaps one day the manager’s office at Stamford Bridge. A fitting path for arguably one of our best ever players.

There is still a lot of hard work to be done to mould us into that well drilled machine that we became during our successive league titles. It’s a huge leap from the relatively small Portuguese league to the mighty Premier League but AVB seems to be doing a good job at making it look easy.