10-03-2014 Following a good weekend win in which his centre-forwards contributed to the scoreline with three goals, Jose Mourinho has spoken further about his three strikers, including an injury update on Fernando Torres . The Spaniard, originally selected to start against Tottenham, missed out due to an injury in the warm-up, so Samuel Etoo kicked-off instead and scored the opener, before being replaced late on by Demba Ba who added the last two goals in the 4-0 win. Ba has been the least utilised of the three this season but is still pleasing Mourinho. Ba is very important, he said. I proved earlier in the season that I was right to have three strikers because when one is injured you need the other two. Its one of the best decisions we made to keep three strikers. Its good for him that he scored. Theyre not the winning goals but theyre goals and they give confidence. He played for 90 minutes for his national team midweek and he came back and scored two, so thats good. For opening goalscorer Etoo, who added his ninth goal of the season following a Tottenham slip, Mourinho had praise too. In the second half Etoo was brilliant, said the manager. Vertonghens mistake was only a mistake because Etoo was there. If Etoo was not there, if Etoo doesnt read the situation the defender or the goalkeeper will get the ball. We had two big chances in the first half. The one for Eden Hazard and a two-against-one - Etoo and Schurrle - when Etoo makes a decision which I like because I like strikers to be sometimes selfish and he missed the chance. We are not so clinical that we score with our first chance but in the second half we started better and when the chance arrived Etoo killed the game. Hes not super-fast like he was 10 years ago, so he needs to be close to the goal, he needs his feet in the box and hes very intelligent in the way he moves. He scored against Cardiff when the goalkeeper dropped the ball, he scored a goal against West Brom when Ridgewell controlled the ball and he came from behind. Now he reads Vertonghens mistake. These are fox goals. Mourinho anticipates it will be a choice between Etoo and Ba up front for the next couple of games given the early assessment of Torress injury. Torres has a muscular problem, he reports, and even when they are small it is always a couple of weeks. He has to go for scans. Hes already had two problems, in both knees, both ligaments, but his recovery was faster than we expected. He also had a little muscular problem and now hes having another one. Sometimes it happens. There are other players who have the same. Others have a complete season without problems.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 19:57:55 +0000
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