No the passage you have quoted is exactly what I've just told you, the tackle wasn't careless, reckless, or undertaken with excessive force.
So its not a foul.
The tackle was careless, and reckless, if Torres's right foot was planted rather than the left, his studs in tackle would have GONE THROUGH his shin, or if lucky pushed Torres's studs out of the ground. The only thing that saved him was he was lifting that leg, which meant Evan's studs went down his shin AND caught the toe.
As for going down, you simply can't decide if he would have gone down or not. Run at full speed and have someone kick any part of your leg, if you feel your leg off balance, you will often fall rather than stumble around like an idiot and then go down, because we're designed to do this.
The ref sent him off because he believed there was no contact, there was, acting high and mighty and deciding if a player would or wouldn't have gone down is something that is simply impossible, it was a foul, it wasn't a dive.
Could he have stayed up, maybe, maybe he would have brought his right leg forward and fallen ackwardly instead. I hate Torres, but 99% of players would have gone down, most players would have gone down even if they tried harder to stay up, the contact WAS a foul, at that point it really doesn't matter what happens afterwards. He could run on go to the corner flag and dry hump it, Evan's still fouled him and it wasn't a dive.
Should he have been off the pitch for the high tackle, I really want to see a good replay of it, I said at the time it looked pretty awful from a replay but, it wasn't De Jong, the ball was there to be won, it was stupid, my feeling for both that and the Ivanovic one were, if I could control the rules, intent would be crucial in both, if either intended what they did, red card, if they didn't yellow card. From memory both De Jongs and Larrsons were foot high with their body weight behind so their full force went into the contact, Torres's was more of a side on kick(I think, again need a replay), it wasn't nice, I don't like Torres, he generally loves to give people little kicks when the ref isn't looking and is a bit of a ****, but I'm not sure that one was intended.
I wouldn't have been surprised if he got sent off, I'm not surprised he didn't. A yellow card for that is far closer to the right decision than Larrsons not being a card last week. Even so, I don't love playing the "two bad decisions evened themselves out" game, a decision is bad, or not, another bad one doesn't make another less bad. However the worst decision was the offside, a draw seemed pretty fair on the general play, even if Utd, or Chelsea deserved it, that goal didn't deserve to be a goal.