Torres

[Assassin]

I cant see anything with regard to this

20 League goals :big****eatinggrinsmilie:

[Craig_H]

Touched upon in this thread:

http://www.est1892.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=48890

But yeah. About time too.

[bobbyfallon]

id ride him

[bdp1978]

just a thought!
if Torres carries on the way he is, we mount a late title challenge, win in Moscow and then Spain win euro08 with 'Nando starring.
do you reckon he'd be Euro playerof the year?

[Joe King]

just a thought!
if Torres carries on the way he is, we mount a late title challenge, win in Moscow and then Spain win euro08 with 'Nando starring.
do you reckon he'd be Euro playerof the year?

It would be a crime if he didn't although I would prefer him not playing in the Euros. Rest up for a bigger season.

[friedk]

I think he's having an ok season, but let's not get carried away, he's not even managing a goal a game.

Scoring in 75% of his games is 25% failure.

[Robster007]

I think he's having an ok season, but let's not get carried away, he's not even managing a goal a game.

Scoring in 75% of his games is 25% failure.

[Parm]

get in there lad, go on and hit the 30 mark!

[peekay]

We must have separate Torres sub-forum like the transfer forum where every member can start infinite separate threads professing their love for Torres

[Ben_Itez]

No, no, i love him more than you

Seriously though he should deffo be in the running for Player of The Year regardless of how we finish the season. Surely the only other player in the running is that cheating toad at old toilet.

In fact doesnt one award have a ludicrously early crowning as such. Anyone??

[marcus50bucks]

Article by Phil Ball (La Liga columnist at ESPN soccernet . com)

Updated: March 17, 2008
¡Viva España!
Phil Ball
Archive

I've watched a lot of football today, from the cosy confines of a west London home, armed with satellite TV and a whole host of possibilities at the flick of a zapper's easy switch. I watched Fulham v Everton, Man City v Tottenham and finally Almeria v Barcelona, but when Atletico Madriid v Levante came on I felt obliged to re-join the world, partly because I suspected there was to be little contest but also because mine hosts had very generously served up roast lamb for my delectation, whilst making indirect barbed comments about the amount of football that I'd been indulging myself in. Hey - it's the holidays!

Despite all the talk about the new power of the Premier League, despite the fact that four of its major sides straddle the Champions League, and despite the fact that Spain's top flight continues to stutter, the Almeria v Barcelona game struck me as by far the best of the three - call me biased. Barcelona continue to look a defective outfit, unable to sort out a basic approach to a game that their quality should have resolved by half-time, but stymied by the sheer power and desire of their relatively modest opponents. Almeria refused to lie down, refused to be overawed, and were in truth the better side.

If you'd just been beamed down from the planet Zarg, you'd have assumed that Almeria were the side attempting to reduce the deficit between first and second place in the league. Both their goals admittedly came from corners, during which Barcelona seemed utterly incapable of doing even the most basic things right (such as marking), but this wasn't Fulham v Everton - a game which the home side won by sheer effort and will, despite looking the technically inferior side. Almeria never looked inferior in any sense, which means that either La Liga continues to be potent, or its leading lights continue to be impotent. I'm not sure which.

But the weekend's results confirmed the more egalitarian nature of the Spanish league this season, as though everyone has got the measure of everyone else. Villarreal have moved to within two points of Barcelona, and are now threatening their second place spot - despite having had their own ups and downs this season. Valencia, losing at home again - this time to improving Sevilla, are in 10th spot but only four points above Recreativo, who occupy the third relegation position.

Real Madrid continued their poor form, losing 1-0 in the Riazon to improving Deportivo - a result which means that they have now failed to win there for seventeen years. Depor, despite their recent decline, have been one of the sides most responsible for this feeling of greater democracy in La Liga, and again, watching the two sides it was difficult to pick out the leader from the struggler. Perhaps Real Madrid feel no pressure any more, now that they know that Barcelona just can't sustain the challenge this season. From now until the end of the season they can win enough games to take the title - 'una mierda' (a crock of ****) as the ex-Madrid player Michel remarked earlier this week, when commenting on the hangover of the merengues' exit from Europe. 'We won so many titles in the 80's and 90's' spat Michel, 'that people began to think it was easy to do that, and that the real test lay in Europe. They forgot just how difficult it was to win a league.'

It's a fair point, but there is a certain amount of paranoia floating around Spanish circles at the moment, partly induced by their poor showing in the Champions this season but also by FIFA's recent statements regarding the fact that the English league is now the 'best' in the world. Fernando Torres, happy as a sandboy at Liverpool now, said something similar a while back - but then he would. He certainly looks a better player than he did at Atletico Madrid, but there are times when he just looks as though he can't believe his luck. English defences play with such a high back line (in general) that a player of his power and technical prowess simply cuts though the spaces like a hot knife through butter. Spanish defences knew all about Torres, and the sort of movements he liked to make. By the time he was into his second season at Atletico, they'd got the measure of him. In England it's unlikely to happen due to the nature of the game there, and he will continue to score goals by the bucketful. To be fair, he's doing the same in Europe too (in Milan only last week) but his confidence is so high now that he's a danger to everyone.

Spain will be hoping that he continues this vein of form in the summer, but more canny defences may still make him look more ordinary. But I don't wish to knock him. You still have to put it into the net, and he's certainly doing that far more consistently than he ever did in Spain.

The financial balance of power has shifted, such that a side like Manchester City can be in on the bidding for Luis Fabiano, Sevilla's Brazilian forward who is topping La Liga's charts. Real Madrid were talking to his agent this week, but Man City and Tottenham are unlikely to lie down without a fight. Money talks. The excellent Xabi Alonso, ridiculously pilloried last week for opting to stay at home for the birth of his first child (as opposed to playing against Inter) has been fancied by a whole host of Spanish clubs since he broke onto the scene at Real Sociedad, but if he really has fallen out irrevocably with Benitez over the baby issue, then it seems more likely that he will stay in England. Real Madrid and Barcelona could offer him good money, but so could Wigan.

In Spain, Almeria (a Wigan equivalent) couldn't dream of securing his services. In La Liga, the football might be showing an egalitarian streak, but this is not so much the case when it comes to bank accounts. It's a shame these days when players of the stature of Sevilla's Dani Alves maintain that to 'move on up' they have to go to England. Alves would no doubt triumph, but it's uncertain as to whether he's talking about football or salaries.

But ultimately, comparisons are kind of odious. Both leagues have different virtues, and FIFA do nobody any favours by suggesting that one is superior to another. In the end it depends what turns you on, and after the interesting but error-strewn game between Man City and Tottenham, the Spanish game came over as a different kind of theatre - one where errors played their part in the goals, but where the ball stayed on the ground far longer and where the careless loss of possession was far less prominent as a deciding factor in the game's outcome.

Then again, the Premier League can certainly pride itself on the fact that incidents such as the one that marred the game between Betis and Athletic Bilbao rarely happen there nowadays. In Spain, they seem to happen with disturbing frequency, although rarely is a game called off due to one. In the 71st minute a bottle flew from the stands and hit Athletic's keeper Armando on the head, causing the game to be called off. Athletic were winning 1-2 at the time and may well be awarded the match. It would be the correct decision.

Flying south for a break this week, which may mean no column next weekend, unless, that is, I manage to take in an interesting game in the Zanzibar top flight. Watch this space.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=517431&root=europe&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos1&cc=3888

Bollocks.

[Reece]

FLMAO @ Alonso joining Wigan