nandos: every footballer's favourite chicken joint and a fifty million pound mystery

hey ilf, what the shit happens now with everyone's favourite awkward spanish out of form guy in hilarious adverts world cup winning striker and 4th most expensive player in history?

he moves, he plays, he falls back in love with the game. Nobody blames rafa.

Presumably Chelsea have got him talking to a psychologist or something to get him out of this rut - because he's seemingly less injury prone than he's been for years so it can't be an issue with his fitness.

Not sure any psychologist is much up against thousands of football fans abusing you every weekend, but still.

'deservedly' abusing you every weekend, tbf

Having been through all the stages of Kübler-Ross now feel pretty sorry for Nando. Kind of think LFC broke him. A move to Milan might be good for him.

Even when he was shit at Liverpool he was better than this.

Think he should dye his hair again, it would be a start anyway

2 assists on tuesday a decent start for the revival.

lol yeah assists yeah

He's still waiting for that goal to go in off his backside, then he won't be able to stop scoring. Can't he just get the rest of the Chelsea team to welly it at him until it goes in?

i dunno is that true chris, but admittedly i've not seen much of him this season- has he looked sharper then he finished last season?

Apparently those two assists were from shooting positions, make of that what you will.

The second one was from a tough angle, whereas squaring it left Mata with an open goal. Think Torres will get back to his Atleti form but not his Liverpool one. Clearly missing Rafa ;)

idk if i'm just swallowing the media narrative here or what but he does seem to have a really shitty attitude now compared to his salad days. don't feel sympathetic towards him in the slightest.

Think he should dye his hair again, it would be a start anyway

― Juice Should Be Sterliized (Tom D.), Thursday, 15 September 2011 10:42 (3 hours ago) Bookmark

yep

just heard the stat that at the same point in his chelsea career, one of the greatest flops in history andrei shevchenko had scored SIX TIMES THE AMOUNT OF GOALS nando has. I don't think nando's failure really kicked in until i heard that.

if you were looking at buying nando, what would you spend? could chelsea flog him for anything higher than say 15m atm? i don't know if city/psg/roma/malaga would even be that stupid, would they?

what would it take for him to return to form? go back to spain where the game is slower? join a team where there isn't such pressure to perform (does this exist anywhere? maybe barca with the pr being about bringing him back into form w/ his friends from the spain team? at milan where the likes of zlatan and pato are the focus points and if he hits form again, its cool and if he doesnt, then there are strikers and crazies like cassano to keep him out the public eye?)

can he make it work at chelsea? do they have to get rid of drogba and anelka first? neither drogs, anelka or kalou are in the greatest form either, so it kind of adds to the expectation already lumped on him. does he need an in form striker like sturridge to take his place and then work up as the underrated underdog, maybe?

when raul's goals and form dried up for over a year, real bought van nistelrooy and pushed him back into a creative second striker/attacking playmaker role. it seemed stupid but it forced him to be more creative, took the emphasis off his goalscoring and his quality became obvious again. could nando play anywhere else (maybe in 'easier' games?) i don't see him playing the lampard role and he's always looked awkward when shoved out on the wing for spain.

i dunno, i'm just rambling. tbh i don't think anyone really knows what to do.

he's a goal machine, i dunno how he'd adapt to any other role tbh.

Has he ever been fully fit since that time rafa played him against real? It seems not, in my head.

i dunno is that true chris, but admittedly i've not seen much of him this season- has he looked sharper then he finished last season?

Sorry, wasn't being serious with that ball going in off his arse comment - just recycling the view that almost every pro on Sky and BBC have been trotting out for months. Besides, he's had his massive stroke of luck hasn't he - that goal against West Ham last season where the ball got stuck in the puddle.

just heard the stat that at the same point in his chelsea career, one of the greatest flops in history andrei shevchenko had scored SIX TIMES THE AMOUNT OF GOALS nando has. I don't think nando's failure really kicked in until i heard that.

You mean six goals?

the figures match

Maybe he just really misses Liverpool?

he *really* left them by choice?

Anyone remember when journalists were talking like losing Torres was the single worst possible thing that could happen to Liverpool? Heady days.

xp. I dunno. He realises he might've fucked up in wanting out or something. I know that doesn't explain his form before he left.

Whatever, I'm sure he'll be fine.

Next up : gerrard and carra £50m b.o.g.o.f
xp

Looks like he's going to lose his place in the Spain team too

He's still in the Spain team? Surely Villa on his own, or Llorente or at least three or four other Spanish strikers must be a better bet?

Negredo is the new thing

pedro and villa and mata and silva in a rolling attacking four who can replace each other based on form and fitness surely? it is barca with silva or mata instead of messi, remember. why would you care about picking torres unless there were major injury problems? and even then i'd most prob wonder if i could get more from bojan's first time in the squad after a big money transfer than nando.

even this year's Torres is approximately 10x better than Bojan, c'mon.

I bet he'll get at least 10 goals this season without being an automatic starter.

10x better? really? have you seen torres in the past two years? just because bojan wasn't good enough for barca doesn't mean he isn't v talented. zlatan of all players also underwhelmed as a striker in a team that doesn't play strikers. i'm sure he'll end up doing a lot better since leaving than dos santos did.

I bet he'll get at least 10 goals this season without being an automatic starter.

£500k a goal, not bad.

i think that is a losing bet tbh. maybe in all comps.

i think he'll be a starter by end of jan tbh

Reckon he'll get between 12-16 League goals.

i hoped a summer to clear his head and someone like mata playing with him could have had an effect but there seems to be no discernable difference so far.

i think a big problem is that nando is a rare likable character in football and that i want him to do well. if andy carroll looks like a £3.5m striker in a years time instead of a £35m one, I will only care enough to write 'lol' on a message board and move on. but i want the old torres back!

if andy carroll looks like a £3.5m striker in a years time instead of a £35m one

Why you're waiting a year for this I have no idea.

lol was giving him time to adjust to half a new team but yeah if you wanna be ruthless aboot it

carroll is big dunc mkII the epl will feel his wrath yet

Even following the Newcastle to Merseyside route. No jail time as yet alas.

nando is a rare likable character in football

lol

that's just the soft justice system these days tbf

its always a pity to see a talented footballer lose his mojo. even rooney, tbh

we've been over this...

rooney's got his mojo, he just ate it

struggle to see what rooney has that lee hughes hasn't

Eligibility to sit on a jury.

BOOM!

Hair, bought and paid for

In answer to the question, gawd knows. He doesn't look slow, his touch is still there much of the time, and he's not hiding. He just can't do it anymore. Even his hopeless, unhappy last half-season at Liverpool yielded nine goals, and he was unfit a lot of that.

been shit for what? year and a half? how long was rooney's funk? 6 months?

probably closer to 8/9 months

Getting on two years now. Rooney was nigh on a year, but it was nothing like this.

How many thoroughbred goalscorers don't decline dramatically mid-twenties? Maybe guys like Inzaghi are freak phenomena.

I'm still banging them well into my late 20s

mid-twenties? most haven't even peaked yet! the likes of owen and torres are the exception to the rule, not the rule itself

and fowler, and collymore, and baros, and cissé

klose

the Shevchenko trajectory is what I sadly foresee for Torres, lots of waiting for him to get good again assuming it'll happen some day, and then next thing we know he's in his mid-30s doing alright for some alright team.

obv Torres is a lot younger but he doesn't have as far to fall as Shevchenko did. So it won't be as sad really.

What was it went wrong with Shevchenko?

signed for the wrong club for money

ding ding ding

I'm not sure you're allowed to award yourself a "ding ding ding"

ok

You've pushed me to it

idg 'ding ding ding'

Happy now?

no, somewhat perturbed actually

sry man, i can't be the poster you need me to be

he's a goal machine, i dunno how he'd adapt to any other role tbh.

― talking heads, quiet smith (darraghmac), Thursday, 15 September 2011 14:45 (Yesterday) Bookmark

this happens fairly often as (usually post-injury) pace & youth dwindle iirc? maybe i'm just imagining it.

dunno, maybe, think he might be more owen than raul is all

Think Torres will get back to his Atleti form but not his Liverpool one. Clearly missing Rafa ;)

― pandemic, Thursday, 15 September 2011 14:25 (3 days ago)

this game looked a lot like torres at atletico