Blues jet off to recharge batteries

WITHIN hours of the final whistle, Andre Villas-Boas flew off to Majorca with his Chelsea squad for a five-day stint he hopes can transform their flagging fortunes.

Seems they’ve finally tracked down a country where Fernando Torres can find the net...

Except that he doesn’t score very often for Spain these days either. At least the former Liverpool forward’s continuing barren run in front of goal — 15 matches and counting — acts as a convenient smokescreen for the fuss that the re-run of John Terry v Anton Ferdinand will cause at the end of the week, first on the pitch in an FA cup tie and then in court.

No wonder Villas-Boas was so keen to fly away, although Frank Lampard wasn’t able to join the party, having instead been packed off to have a scan on a calf injury that forced him off after 35 minutes and left him looking glum on the sidelines.

Most of the misery belonged to Torres of course following another embarrassing miss. A tame toe-poke wide with the goal at his mercy wasn’t quite in the same category as his famous Old Trafford open goal refusal but it was uploaded to YouTube within hours of the final whistle nevertheless. No-one, it seems, needs a little sunshine in his life more than Fernando.

Nipping off to the Mediterranean was a trick Brian Clough used to employ with great effect in his Nottingham Forest heyday of course but you’ll be hard pressed to find a manager more unlike Old Big ‘Ead than dapper touchline croucher AVB.

Would Cloughie have spent a lengthy portion of his post-match post mortem claiming he really didn’t mind if his £50million striker didn’t find the net just so long as he tried hard? Would he buffalo. It’s not difficult to imagine the words he actually would have used about the ‘young man’.

Certainly not anything like this: “He had a good couple of chances, and for you to have chances you have to position yourself to have those good chances and he was there present. With a little bit more luck he will find the back of the net.”

It was a shame the fuss over Torres overshadowed Norwich’s endeavour and although the home side did indeed have to dig deep defensively, especially in the last 10 minutes, the point from their first clean sheet of the season was thoroughly deserved.

The relentless Steve Morison and burly target man Grant Holt gave Terry and defensive partner David Luiz a hard time throughout, with both forwards coming close with early chances.

Luiz’s presence meant Gary Cahill has to wait for his Chelsea debut — the £7million signing from Bolton wasn’t even named on the bench — but the erratic Brazilian overcame a shaky start to put in a display that suggested he might keep his place a little longer.

Norwich’s centre-back pairing was also impressive though, as Zak Whitbread and Daniel Ayala worked overtime to clear their lines. Anything they could not repel was blocked by keeper John Ruddy, whose finger-tip save in the first half denied Torres the breakthrough he craves.