• Premier League

Torres on borrowed time at Chelsea - Cascarino

ESPN staff
November 24, 2011
Fernando Torres has been on the bench for each of Chelsea's most recent three games © Getty Images
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Fernando Torres' future at Chelsea looks bleak as he is not part of manager Andre Villas-Boas' plans, according to former Blues striker Tony Cascarino.

Torres, who moved to Stamford Bridge for £50 million in January, has started on the bench for Chelsea's past three matches, with Didier Drogba now ahead of him in the pecking order.

Following a disappointing start to life with the Blues, which saw him fail to find the target until April, he looked to have turned a corner when he began the current campaign with a few much-improved performances.

However, since being dismissed against Swansea in September, he has not found the target in the Premier League and has looked bereft of confidence - a state of affairs that augurs badly for his Chelsea future, according to Cascarino.

"It must be becoming clearer by the day to Fernando Torres that he is on borrowed time at Stamford Bridge," Cascarino wrote in the Times. "If it was not obvious before, the 2-1 defeat by Bayer Leverkusen [on Wednesday] underlined it.

"The writing was on the wall when the Spain forward was left out of the Liverpool game [last weekend]. If ever there was a match you would expect to play in, it is against former team-mates whose weaknesses you know intimately.

"The message sent out is that Torres is second choice for the must-win matches. Didier Drogba led the line [against Leverkusen] and his touch of class brought Chelsea the lead. But the Ivorian is closing in on 34. He will not be the man who shapes André Villas-Boas' future. Neither will Torres -- who should be at his peak at 27 -- by the looks of it.

"There are no longer any excuses. Torres had a full pre-season and came out flying against Stoke City on the first weekend of the campaign. Everyone thought his problems were over but, since his sending-off against Swansea City, he has reverted to that peripheral figure of the spring. Increasingly, he does not appear to be a part of Villas-Boas' plans."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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