David Villa Or Fernando Torres? Who would you pick?
Seems to be that these two are being compared to each other constantly, always linked with moves to the Premiership. We’ve looked at both players and what they have to offer - read up and then offer your views (and pick) in the comments.
David Villa is often linked with Chelsea (beginning of last season and this summer) and ever since Rafa was given the millions that he now has at his disposal, Liverpool have been linked as a very suitable place for Villa to go to (because of Rafa’s obvious preference for Spanish players, and also the fact that he is one of the best strikers in the world, which is what Liverpool are looking for) .
Fernando Torres has been recognized as a player with huge potential ever since he became Atletico’s captain at the age of 19. But many still regard him as having great potential, while others believe that he is now one of the world’s top strikers. I am one of those people; he’s fast, strong, good at heading, scores goals and gets involved in the build-up play. Torres has been linked with Manchester United for two summers in a row, but year after year he outlines his loyalty to making Atletico one of the top teams in
Spain.
I actually quite like Atletico and think that they have a good team, but somehow they under perform every year, and Torres has still never realised his dream of getting into the champions league (I just can’t see it happening with Atletico) .
I’d say within two years he will be in the champions league, probably with an English team, as he is unlikely to go to another Spanish team, and I can’t see him going to any Italian team, which leaves us with any of the top four, although he isn’t as frequently linked with Chelsea anymore and Arsenal seem to have no money at all after building the Emirates, which leaves you with Liverpool and Manchester United, who both are looking for strikers, and I’d put Torres in the top 15 strikers, possibly top 10.
David Villa seemed to come from nowhere to become one of the top strikers in the world. I remember two years ago reading in a magazine that Liverpool were interested in him, when he was at Real Zaragoza, and I had absolutely no idea who he was, I think it was just after he had a wonderful season scoring over 15 goals (which for Zaragoza, who weren’t great back then, was a good record), and apparently he was available for around 8 million.
Instead they signed Peter Crouch for 7 million when Crouch obviously just had a good run of form and he was never Liverpool quality, and so Villa moved to Valencia, and from then he has proved himself to be one of the deadliest strikers in the world, again he has pace, he’s good at shooting, and he gets into good positions.
This summer he is widely expected to move to the Premiership (if he moves at all) and Chelsea or Liverpool seem his likely destinations, but I think that Villa being linked with Chelsea is just paper talk, because of three things:
- Chelsea don’t seem likely to spend big
- They just brought in Pizzaro, and although Pizzaro seems to be fairly average, they should have enough strikers now
- And I think that Shevchenko will be given another year in the team
But Liverpool would be a good team for him, and Kuyt and Villa would probably work well(or even better Tevez and Villa) and Rafa apparently has the money to spend so everything seems to point to Liverpool.
In terms of finishing ability, Villa has proved he is better, as last year he finished joint top scorer in the league, scoring 23 goals (I think) whereas in contrast, Torres has never scored more than 15 league goals. This could be down to the teams they play for, but I think most people would agree Villa is a better goalscorer.
In my opinion they are both pretty close in terms of speed and dribbling ability. And they both are fairly skillful, Villa having the edge in technical ability while Torres has the edge in aerial duels..
As I am a Manchester United supporter I would prefer to have Torres, as he fits our style of play better, but overall I think David Villa is the better striker (although he is likely to cost a lot more).
What do you guys think?
David Villa.
For United I’d reject both and go for an older, taller striker.
Torres hands down. He beats Villa in every fact of play. Villa is only a more natural finisher. Nothing else. Villa is perceived to be “better” simply because of his goals.
At Zaragoza a weak club like Atletico his goal scoring wasn’t that spectacular. Even now it still isn’t. He is at a miles better club, Torres is having a bad year but they have about the same number of goals this season. That says it all.
@ Ahmed. You wont find many forwards taller than those two who are as good. Only Anelka, Zlatan and Berbatov are better. Only God knows why United can’t tie up a deal for teh cheap and deadly Anelka.
It depends completely on the team and the system. Villa is a better finisher of the ball and an out and out center forward. For a team like Arsenal who create a lot and just need a man to tap them in, villa is perfect. But in a counter attacking team he would not be as effective as Torres who has a pace and good striker as well. A team like Man Utd would suit him better because he would link up play and make quick runs, which is what they need. So it depends completely on the style of play. But for my money i would go for Torres. Villa may score more goals but Torres goes deep for the ball, links up play and manages to score 15 odd goals. So from an overall point of view, i’d go for Torres over Villa.
Torres is far better than villa and given his age and class he should be the one united should look for.Even if he costs around 30m it is worth it.
If you want a link-up player you’d go for a Tevez.
If you want a pure finisher you’d go for an RVN.
Incidentally, RVN+Tevez at Real Madrid would win the Champions League, if they got their defense right.
Anyway, back to United - would take Anelka / Berbatov / Klose / Tevez over Villa / Torres. Nothing personal, I’d just go for someone cheaper and if we have to pay money, then Tevez is the best bet of the lot.
They are both quick, but they use their speed differently.
Villa is quick in the small space in and around the area, where Torres is probably one of the fastest in the world outfield - way faster than Villa. He has Ronaldo like pace with the ball. Torres is not as clinical in the area, but at United he would score 20 goals imo. Villa would probably get the same number, so it’s difficult to say, who’s better.
Some write that Torres has aerial ability - I’m not sure of what you mean. He’s not the type that heads it in from corners, but he’d probably be more effective against a single defender in the air than Villa.
With Villa you’d get a lethal weapon on free kicks - something we miss a lot at Man United.
I’m not sure which of the 2 is the better link-up player, but they both have a good touch, and Torres is probably stronger, even though Villa uses his low gravity point well (a bit like Tevez, all though probably not as well).
Villa would probably cost £5 mil more, and I think Torres would fit our style of play better, so I’d go for him, but I wouldn’t exactly be disappointed with Villa.
Oh, and I think Torres is the most likely to be sold of the 2, and I wouldn’t like to see him go to Chelsea, Arsenal or Liverpool without us getting Tevez (or another world class striker).
Considering that Man Utd need a tall goal machine, how does Torres fit in better if Villa is the goal machine?
Well I guess you’re right, but there’s an old saying in handball that you can’t teach a short man to be tall, but you can teach a tall man to play handball. It may apply to the TOrres vs. Villa battle.
Villa will never be tall (he’s pretty short actually, 1,75m), but you may be able to turn Torres into a goal machine (and he’s 1,86m).
But would you prefer Huntelaar to any of these 2 spaniards, Ahmed?
We shouldn’t buy Torres just for his speed, because I think we have plenty of speed now with Nani, Anderson, Rooney and ROnaldo.
Ahmed, I agree with you 100%.
I have not seen enough of either players to make a comparison (can basically only base it on my Fifa2007). For this reason I will not even bother.
What I do know is that United don’t really need an expensive striker. We do not need another Rooney or another Saha. What we do need is depth so that we can give these guys a break sometimes. We don’t have to turn expensive siginings into goal machines, we have Rossi.
(But damn, I would have rejected my own theory for Tevez)
Karl - I just answered the question of who of Torres and Villa I would pick…not who I’d prefer at the club.
I basically think Torres can be turned into a lean mean goal machine, and now that Saha is out at least until November, we better sign someone, or it could look a bit scary despite the 3 signings allready made.
Tomas, sorry, my response was not directed at you. Your response made a lot of sense, and besides, I admitted to not knowing enough of the strikers to know wether they will be an addition to the club or not. Your choice of words just seemed so fitting to state my point of view.
I’d love Torres at the club, just on the basis that his speed and height will add another whole dimension to our game and there is NO chance of that happening til it happens. This link has been for ever standing and it gets is irritating looking at the story. Rossi and Smith to partner Rooney and there is still Dong. Im not counting Saha since he is out til November? or Ole since he is 34 and very much injury prone too. My choice this summer is Benni Mccarthy or Le Sulk, just to add up the numbers and a target man that will give extra options on the bench. Or if Inter buys Tevez, or take the initiative to buy Adriano or Ibrahimovic(something tells me this will appear in The Sun anytime soon).
Torres’ buyout clause is about 25 million while Villa’s is closer to 40 Million so that’s one way of looking at it. I think Villa (like many others said before me) is the more gifted finisher. Torres plays his socks off for Atletico without ever taking them anywhere (in all fairness, one swallow does not make a summer). But if I had to pick between one of them, I’d go for Torres because he’s younger, cheaper and probably more adaptable to various formations. Plus making the grade of club captain means he’s got leadership potential too. You can’t put a price-tag on that!
well i will look at it at a what we(a club) need point of view. if it is united, last season they did well(and scoring lots) despite saha not playing at times, but what they really need is someone who lights the big stage(fact united did not do well against chelsea(H) and arsenal(H/A), ronaldo not really good against tough teams).
torres plus pts: tall(read target man), build up play and leadership and he has lead a.madrid to derby wins agst real.
villa: nippy(smaller in size), poacher, europe experience.
united’s rooney like to play behind the striker, so if they buy torres, either will have to stay up for goals and it will be torres. but villa has experience if united wants the champs league. then again united do not like to put a player for goals like RVN. so torres is best as ronaldo’s and carrick’s balls can hit him, he may not socre with his head put a lay off to rooney will sure do it. he’ll surely be united top scorer but a little european exp will help united get further in the champs league.
wht r u guyz on about?! villa is jus notha roon! im not sayin roon’s bad .. im jus sayin tht if we already got 1 roon thr’s no way 2 roon’s can work! ;p torres hands down! hes quick better in air, tht’s important in the prem! look at terry great headerer of da ball! i personally think torres would suit our attack than villa! as far as tevez is concerned! hes not a world class striker n hes just good for the brasilian n argentinian leagues! hes not good nough for the prem. im sure he’ll make it big in la liga though n calcio yeh he;ll be good but still have ups n downs! anelka wud be good but i think personally torres cud become one of the best strikers in da world!
Ehhh john villa is hardly like rooney at all, villa is ‘always on the shoulder of the defence’ so he’ll be looking in behind for the ball, from rooney or carrick, and so rooney would be good with villa. Anyways, no1 would mind two rooneys like;) its just the fact that villa will win just as many headers as rooney, which isn’t alot, so thats why i prefer torres, for utd.
The fact that tomas made of villa being a good free kick taker is a big plus pt for united as its clear to everyone ronaldo scores about 1 or 2 free kicks out of about 30, personally i think giggs is our best free kick taker, but having villa take our free kicks would be great:) although ya never no…nani or anderson might be good at free kicks….
David Villa i remember watchin torres a few times and he seemed fairly average
Ahmed B. is in love with a Blackburn player.Guess who
For your information he’s scored 4 penalties (which means he is almost equal to Rooney) and he is the most offside man in the premiership (66)
Villa is better…hands down!
much more creative, better finisher, can give any team that edge required to break down stubborn defences.
he is the 1st name on the spanish national team sheet…while theres always a toss up between torres/morientes/raul.
Villa by a long long way. He has lots of pace, can take free kicks, his finishing is exceptional, his link-up play is decent, he is strong and robust. Everything Zizou said…
for me, definately villa. torres may be younger and serve more years, but quality better than quantity. torres misses plenty of chances, villa has increidble skill and is patient.
Isn’t this kind of pointless after buying Anderson and Nani?
not for Liverpool it aint.
still, some united fans think that we need a new striker - and personally, I feel that we still miss RVN. I’d be more than happy to stick with the strikers we have at the moment, as long as Rossi and Saha stick around.
Yeah Ahmed ? And what about your love Benedict MacCarthy?
You think better take him and offload Saha.Right?
saha’s out till november, that the papers say. well like in other treads, it would be a good idea to try rossi out rather than buy and buy, whats united’s academy for when we clubs buy from other club’s youth academy.
rossi, eagles, pique, nani, anderson, foster(currently on loan) that half the squad to in ten years time, oops rooney and ronaldo.
Haha^^ You included eagles in that, hes not actually that good, i like him because he scored a good goal like, but you’ll see he’s not man utd quality, but everyone else up there is.
i wouldnt pick any of the above,if liverpool let gp of crouch then i would grab crouch and bring him to united.
uhh..crouch? r u 4 real? i’ve never been a fan of crouch whenever he plays (apart from his hat-trick vs arse)..sure, he give the aerial advantage but that’s abt it, nothing more
crouch isnt only aerially advantaged, watch him dribble, he may look stupid but does the trick.
Crouch is crap, he’s slow, bad at heading, ok finisher, hasn’t got a good long range shot and since liverpool bought him for 7m, i don’t see them selling him for anything less than 5m, he’s worth about 2. He’s at the level of a premiership team fighting for survival, like fulham.
Crouch may be able to dribble, and I don’t question his technique. But what he does is he gets the ball down on the ground, dribbles 2 players going 5 yards back and then passes the ball. You rarely see him go forward when dribbling, which makes it a whole lot easier.
He’s the type of player that slows the attack down big time, which is why, he’s useless at Man United. Look at Saha…he gets the ball on the ground, turns and goes forward…like Rooney, Giggs and Ronaldo. This why our attacking game is so fast and wonderful to look at.
Crouch fits perfectly at Liverpool, where it takes more time to get fewer players ahead.
talking about quality it will be torres because he have the speed,the headering skills,n he is younger.but if ur talking about the finishing it will be david villa.if you watch when spain play againts slovakia then u will only know hus better.if u see how david villa score his bycicle kick u can see that david villa’s quality on his finishing.to me only god
knows whos better.well actually david villa is better though because he has more experience than torres does.so i think david villa is better.
fernando torres best spanish player in the game he does it all hes going to win spain the world cup
I completely agree with tomas about crouch always going backwards, but that might just be because thats all liverpool do, go backwards or pass it square, and saha realy dies turn defenders constantly, thats why i would prefer to keep Saha at Utd. He could play for any team in the premiership, Fernando Torres is basically the same striker as Saha, as they are both tall, fast, and score 15 goals a season normally, the difference is, Torres would cost an extra 30m, but Saha doesn’t seem to be able to ever have an injury free season, everyone can cearly see that, still, if Saha wasn’t injury prone, he would be known as one of the top 5 strikers in the premiership, and would probably be a first team striker for France. And what about the new guy quaglierella, who would you prefer: Quaglierelaa or Torres?
Even Guillem Balague says that Torres would need to improve his dribbling and shooting to stand a chance of succeeding in the Premier League.
Villa on the other hand is the real deal.
I don’t care what anyone says about RVN.. Bad attitude at the end maybe. But after not even being brought on as a sub in the league cup whilst Vida and Evra came on who could blame him. If any of the strikers we have had to play in front of the farce that was our midfield pre carrick and Scholesey sorting himself out they wouldn’t have done any better I can tell you.
This notion that we play nicer football ONLY cos Ruud has gone too is frankly boll@cks, lazy journalistic boll@cks that other people have jumped onto. There was still a place for him…
As AB says.. RVN and Tevez @ Real… Could be lethal
David Villa any day.He outclasses Torres in every aspect of the game.
David Villa-20 goals, 15 in la liga, 5 in europe
Torres-14 goals in la liga
The stats don’t really show much difference but Villa is the king
Conor - Quagliarella or Torres? I have to say Torres, since I don’t know anything about Quagliarella. I don’t think Torres is the best finisher out there, but his pace and touch alone are lethal. Quagliarella might be the right man for United, since he (from what I’ve read) seems more of a finisher. We already have Nani, Anderson, Rooney and Ronaldo with touch and pace. Of course Torres would be great to have, but we can do with a cheaper option like Quagsi, if he’s a deadly finisher.
But my overall answer has to be Torres, since I know a lot more about him, and he’s great.
Btw. I don’t think Liverpool fans should have too high hopes of signing Torres… I think he’s staying.
Nahhh i think Torres will leave this season, Atletico aren’t even in the Uefa Cup next season. Yeah im not sure, I’d rather have Torres since we have no-one who can score a header, and quagliarella seems pretty small, the only tell player in out front four is Ronaldo, and Saha if he plays.
I wouldn’t expect Torres to score that many headers…it’s certainly not his strength despite his size. Of course he can head, but he’s not an aggressive header of the ball like the really great headers. You wouldn’t see him score from set pieces, but of course if left alone in the box from a cross, he’d be dangerous.
He might leave, but both he and the club have said today that he isn’t leaving. This whole Liverpool thing looks a lot like United’s connection with him the last couple of summers. I agree there’s a greater chance he’ll leave now with AM not even qualifying for UEFA Cup, but I wouldn’t bet my money on it, and it’ll certainly test the thickness of Liverpool’s new owner’s wallets.
i’m from Spain and i can tell you that David Villa is the best striker from spain with a lot of diference and not only scoring goals, i see the matches of valencia and athletico de madrid and are a lot of diference of quality.
Fernando torres 6 points, david villa 9 points
Yeah but tomas thats the same as Berbatov, he isn’t an agressive header either, but it’s just being able to be able to head it if were going for a long ball etc.
It really does seem like United aren’t gonna buy any striker though, even if smith leaves im not sure we will… Its weird that we’re not linked with any left backs though, because we all know that Heinze is going to leave.
1 thing more.. yes, i know that villa had the same goals in the world cup than torres but in the world cup,villa was starting in the national team and he played a lot of the matches at the bench, ¿where is playing fernando torres now in the national team? and villa? now villa have the t-shirt of the legendman raul, why? because villa will be a legend from spain like him.
most of you guys are delusional (the guys who think Torres is currently a better playere), and obviously dont watch Valencia or Atletico. the person who claimed that they’d pick Torres over Villa because Torres links up play better, David Villa got more assits the last two years than Torres, the reason he didnt score more goals this year was because he was dropping deep trying to create more because Valencia had sold Aimar. Yet he still managed to score 21 goals this season. And too Keith Kaira II, the fact that your claiming Torres is better hands down just proves your as stupid as your name, the facts don’t support you, spains top football pundits certainly prefer Villa to Torres. Villa scores more at club level, ( and he still scored more at Zaragoza than Torres does), scores more at International level, he brings more to the team, makes more assists and is all round a better player. So tell me how is Torres hands down a bewtter player?
villa with no hesitation
sayin villa is only a better finisher is laughable hes constantly the best assist player and with players like baraja and vicente out joaquin strugglin for form his record stands out even more torres is a gifted player bt villa is all round the best in europe
all the Bad comments about Torres strangely came after his move lol funny ol world
Right now I’d go with Villa but I think its relevant that Torres ventured out of La Liga and is playing well in the EPL since we all know that not all players who come to the EPL are able to replicate or even do better than they did in their first league.
…but head to head strikers taking nothing else into consideration? Villa. Plus I like his loyalty to Valencia.
but as far as Man U goes, I think they are more in need of someone else to put in that back four. I know that Ferdinand still performs well, and Vidic is doing great…but I still feel like something is lacking there, moreso than up front.
I’d go with Villa over Torres. Villa has better moves and skills to get past people. Torres is faster or just as fast as Villa, but he gets more goals because he is on a better team. I think Villa should go to Arsenal to link up and to turn and get ACCURATE shots on goal.
Torres is a proven goal scorer and if he goes to liverpool i can see him geting 30 plus nxt season. Liverpool to go for quaresma nd david silva and ryan babel!!!!!!!!
Torres for SURE!!!
ƒєяηαη∂σ тσяяєѕ all the way!!!
But unfortunately Man Utd has NO chance of buying him, not selling!!
about what villa said, torres is no longer playing in the la liga and in the bpl, he scored 33 goals, more than double of what villa scored.
BTW, i will not mind if Villa joins LFC, he’s not bad
ƒєяηαη∂σ тσяяєѕ all the way!!!!!!
Of course Villa.
Simply superior