Award winning American poet Jennifer Juneau reflects on
the success at Chelsea of David Luiz when
compared with fellow new signing Fernando
Torres.
He didn’t come with a £50 million price tag, but what came for
half the price proved twice his weight in gold when on 1 March
David Luiz, Chelsea’s new multi-talented signing, sealed his fate
at Stamford Bridge.
When a ball from Branislav Ivanovic fell in front of him so
fluently, Luiz acted quickly and volleyed it past
Edwin van der Sar in the
ninth minute to the second half. It seemed so natural that fans not
only hope to see more performances like this in the future, they
expect it.
Manchester United’s goalkeeper never saw it coming. Neither did
anyone else, who still wait for Chelsea’s other current signing,
Fernando Torres, to prove
his worth.
Two signings. One star. What’s in a name? Apparently £50
million.
For now it’s the twenty-three-year-old São Paulo born player
that has everyone in the football world talking, because let’s face
it, where is the pressure to score goals when you’ve been signed as
a defender? His first starting game against Fulham earned him Barclays
Man of the Match and his energy on the pitch hasn’t disappointed
fans since.
When the January transfer window shut and Chelsea introduced Torres
and Luiz, the focus was on the ex-Liverpool striker and Luiz’s
name became drowned out in the Torres buzz. Not only because
Chelsea and Torres fans
trusted no. 9 to bring Chelsea out of their slump,
but because the monetary value placed on Torres to perform miracles
was horrendous.
Now ironically, with all of Torres’s talent foot-dragging to the
surface, the high price has taken its toll on the player, keeping
his loyal followers making yet more excuses for being goal-shy. The
latest excuse? — he’s under pressure.
But don’t write the ex-Reds player off yet. Little by little his
proficiency is rising and soon enough he’ll be back in the
game.
Compared to Torres’s first couple of matches with
Chelsea against
Liverpool and
Fulham, the striker is
starting to wake up. In Chelsea’s last match against
Manchester United, he seemed
more at ease with his Blues teammates.
If anyone is confident Torres will explode on a scoring tear
soon, it’s Carlo
Ancelotti. Or it could be that he is just
exhausting his money’s worth, but Ancelotti has started Torres,
leaving Chelsea’s top scorer Didier
Drogba warming the bench.
Rightfully so. Drogba has demonstrated in past matches that he
prefers to go solo.
It is difficult to imagine the two players connecting and by
starting Torres Ancelotti might be defending his proposed
mistake—not a mistake by signing Torres, but placing a high value
on his commodity to clean Chelsea’s record up.
But the fact that Torres said in an interview with
Chelsea Magazine that
he is adaptable to any team’s style of playing may go against
him.
During the Manchester United match
Torres was wide open to receive the ball from Drogba who took the
liberty of keeping it and shooting from too far a distance, right
over the goalkeeper instead of passing it to an uncovered
Torres.
How does one adapt to that?
The adaptable one is clearly Luiz, who has the ability,
according to his past record, to counteract setbacks.
Or, in the instance of continued success, Chelsea may have to learn to
play around their new center back.
Luiz’s determination is right on target and sparks when he
emerges out of defence with the ball to make things happen. Should
his deviation be a call for concern? Not as long as he continues to
make things happen.
More news @ LetgetLIVE.tk