Andre Villas-Boas should take some time to sit down with Fernando Torres before Sunday's blockbuster against Manchester United.
Not to advise him on how to take on Phil Jones and Chris Smalling but to make him a commitment and give him an ultimatum.
Torres set up a couple of goals in Chelsea's Champions League match against Bayer Leverkusen and that was a sign of a world-class player who has lost his way beginning to find himself again. However, it's not exactly what Chelsea paid £50m for him to do.
So AVB should sit him down and lay it out for him. Tell Torres that he has got the next 21 games – up to and including New Year's Eve at home to Villa – to really show why Chelsea bought him for a British record fee.
Tell him that no matter how much Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka, or any other of the team,-mates he is said to have branded “old and slow”, pout and moan, he'll be starting every one of those games. And that his future depends on what happens in them.
If he continues his improved form so far this season and adds the odd goal, good. If he starts banging them in and approaching his old Liverpool form, wonderful.
But if he continues to fire blanks and drifts back into the kind of listless performances we saw from him at times last season, let him know he'll be on his way. That Chelsea will admit the experiment has failed and take a £20m or even £30m hit to move him out. That they'll go for one of the swap deals currently being talked about in Italy, with Pato or Robinho coming the other way.
Because Chelsea can't wait indefinitely for Torres to come good. At some stage they need to cut their losses and move on.
I wan to see him succeed at Chelsea. He has all the talent in the world and the Blues need him to succeed in order to make this season more than a two-horse race between the Manchester clubs
If Torres can get back to anywhere near his best, Villas-Boas has a near-world-class player who he could either keep or sell on for a profit in summer to fund more rebuilding.
If the Spanish striker simply can't do it, then he can be written off like Andriy Shevchenko was. I'm sure no-one is brave enough to mention him around Roman Abramovich these days and Torres will be similarly forgotten.
The good news for Torres is that in Juan Mata he has exactly the kind of foil he needs and the kind of player Chelsea lacked so badly last season.
He has an eye for goal, but his awareness and ability to go past players and thread through a telling ball should be enough to revive his flagging team-mate.
So give him until the window opens to hit it off with Mata. And don't rush to judgement off the back of the United game, because I can only see that ending one way.
Manchester United's front six are so good and so confident at the moment – and I have to admit that Anderson, who I've long had doubts about, has been absolutely terrific – that they will run the Blues ragged and win by at least two goals.
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