Stamford Bridge club may be forced to sell goalkeeper Petr Cech if they cannot find buyer for cut-price Spanish flop
Torres (left) will be going if a buyer can be found after the return of Drogba
Jose Mourinho has admitted that he will have to get rid of one of his foreign players as Chelsea desperately try to find a buyer for Fernando Torres.The return of Didier Drogba means Chelsea’s anticipated first-team squad has one too many foreign players under Premier League and Champions League rules relating to the home-grown quota.
Clubs can only name 17 foreign players over the age of 21 in their official 25-man squads and Chelsea have 18 overseas stars who are realistically vying for those places.Mourinho, the Chelsea manager, wants to offload £50 million flop Torres, but clubs are being put off by the £20 million asking price and the Spaniard’s £175,000-a-week wages.Chelsea hope that Atlético Madrid may take Torres back, while Monaco are understood to have looked at his situation in case Radamel Falcao leaves.
Should Chelsea fail to sell Torres or midfielder John Obi Mikel, who has not generated much interest, Mourinho may be forced to consider a Paris St-Germain offer for the goalkeeper Petr Cech.The area of Mourinho’s squad is clearly overloaded in the goalkeeping department, where he has three senior foreign players – the Czech Republic international Cech, the Belgian Thibaut Courtois and Mark Schwarzer, of Australia.
Schwarzer signed a new one-year contract this summer, which, despite Mourinho’s claim that he would like both men to stay, points to the possibility of either Cech or Courtois leaving.Courtois returns on Tuesday to Chelsea pre-season training in Holland, with PSG watching Cech’s situation carefully and ready to make a £10 million bid for the 32-year-old. Selling Cech would allow Mourinho to use the Englishmen Jamal Blackman or Mitchell Beeney as his third-choice goalkeeper, behind Courtois and Schwarzer, and bring Chelsea’s foreign quota down to the permitted level.
“From the group you are expecting us to have as a squad, I have to send one away because we have one extra foreign player,” Mourinho said.“So from all these players, if you think all of them have to stay, you are wrong. One of them has to go.” Romelu Lukaku still counts as an under-21 player under Premier League rules and would fulfil home-grown status, which means a move to Everton would not solve Mourinho’s problem.
New signing Cesc Fàbregas counts as a home-grown player because of his eight years at Arsenal. But with Ryan Bertrand and Victor Moses set to leave Stamford Bridge, Mourinho will not be able to fill his quota in the Premier League or Champions League and will have to top up his squad from the club’s under-21 list.
The teenagers Andreas Christensen and Nathan Aké will be part of the first-team squad, while Lewis Baker, Izzy Brown and Dominic Solanke will spend the season training with the seniors.
Mourinho claimed that he would have failed if Baker, Brown and Solanke do not go on to win full international caps for England. Forwards Brown and Solanke were part of the England team that won the Under-17 European Championships this summer.
“My conscience is, for example, to say to you that I think Baker, Brown, Solanke, if in a few years they are not national team players, I should blame myself,” Mourinho said.
“They are part of a process the club started without me. Now, we have players who will be Chelsea players.
"And when they become Chelsea players, they will become England players, almost for sure. I’m not saying we’re doing it just for English football, because it is also about us.
“At the moment, officially in the first team squad, not under 21s coming to join us now and again, we have Christensen, Aké, probably another one because I want to have one more English player.
“Baker, Brown, Solanke and Jeremy Boga. These four are not going to be in my squad because I cannot have 30 in my squad, but these four are going to work with us all season and these four are going to be Chelsea players.
“These three are English – Brown, Solanke and Baker – they have to be Chelsea players and they have to be national team players. They have to.
"And I have this feeling that our academy is bringing players to our level.
“Chelsea will have a strong team with Christensen, Baker, Brown, Solanke, Boga and Kurt Zouma in two or three years, which is the end of my contract.
“English guys or seven or eight guys from the academy – home-grown players. It’s a complete turnaround. At the moment, you look at the Champions League list and John Terry is the only one club trained.”
