‘It is normal, he is taking his time’ - Chelsea's Andre Villas-Boas remains confident in Fernando Torres despite goal drought

The Portuguese tactician jumped to his striker's defence after 1000 minutes without a goal, although he does concede Didier Drogba will offer 'healthy competition' upon his return

1 Feb 2012 12:49:00

By Ross Jackson

More On :  Chelsea FC, André Villas-Boas, Fernando Torres, Didier Drogba
EPL,Fernando Torres,Manchester United v Chelsea
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Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas has once again leapt to the defence of misfiring striker Fernando Torres after the Spaniard reached a landmark 1000 minutes without a goal.

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In a run which stretches back over 17 games, Torres has suffered his most barren spell in front of goal in his four-and-a-half years in England.

However, Villas-Boas is remaining calm about his striker’s lack of goals and insists his all-round play has been up to standard.

"It is normal, he is taking his time," Villas-Boas told reporters.

"The confidence is there and we believe a lot in the player, he helped the team with his lay-offs and passing and in this situation he has to continue to persist and maybe we can create opportunities that can help us win games.

"If we need to create more opportunities for him to score then that's what we need to do.”

Torres has had a prolonged run in the first team of late due to the absence of Salomon Kalou and in particular Didier Drogba, who are both away with Ivory Coast at the African Cup of Nations.

Villas-Boas is eagerly anticipating the return of Drogba, insisting it will provide "healthy competition" for the Spaniard, and insists the ex-Marseille man wants to stay at the club.

"The two players [Drogba and Torres] compete for the striker position, when Didier arrives back it will be healthy competition and we know the significance of Didier to this team and his goals record.

"We will reassess things when Didier comes back and see how tired he is. His ambition is to stay with us and try and win trophies, so he will be a major plus for the team."

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England 1-0 Belgium, Netherlands 4-0 Northern Ireland - follow all the international action LIVE! ahead of Euro 2012
With countries across the continent gearing up for their final warm-up games ahead of Euro 2012, join us for all the action from Saturday's friendlies. Get in touch with us via Twitter with your reaction.

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19:59 BST
Unfortunately for Northern Ireland, they are trailing the Netherlands 4-0 at half-time. Looks like that one's all sewn up then.
19:54 BST
We're still getting plenty of Hazard chat on Twitter. A few are now saying that he's not worth the hype, others saying he was brilliant(!?) and others (which I agree with), saying he created much of his own hype. What do you think? Get involved!
19:46 BST
Joe Hart has also been giving his thoughts after the Belgium game: "It was a really tough game, a good run out. I thought we played well, [but] we were a little bit bitty at times.

"But, we came through. Obviously there were a lot of changes so it's good to get the result.

"Belgium are a very, very strong side who are going to be really good in the future. Vincent [Kompany] told me about them and said that they were coming good and I totally agree with him."
19:38 BST
Here's Roy Hodgson's reaction to the result and some injury chat: "I'm very pleased, it's been a hard week and we've used a lot of players. There was a lot of disruption in the second-half with substitutions – some forced upon us, some we wanted to do. But it's still a very good end to the week playing against a good Belgian team here. Arguably even stronger than the Norwegian team we played last week and I've got to be more than happy that we've come out with another victory."

"[Gary] Cahill I suppose is slightly more of a concern for me because it is a jaw injury. We're desperately hoping the CT scan doesn't show any fracture and it's just going to be a bruising situation, which will be bad enough, but won't stop him taking part in the tournament. As far as John's [Terry] concerned he felt his hamstring a little bit. Again it wasn't a major thing when he came off but we still need to scan it just to be 100 per cent sure."

Suffice to say, if Cahill has broken his jaw, he won't play any part in the tournament.
19:35 BST
And another point from today: Eden Hazard wasn't great. Don't think you can judge him on one performance though. What do you think? Is it just a case of too much hype around the Chelsea-bound Belgian?
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