Jose Mourinho On Fernando Torres And Homegrown Players
May 25, 2013; Bronx, NY, USA; Chelsea forward Fernando Torres (9) takes a shot on the Manchester City net during the first half at Yankee Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY SportsJose Mourinho has told the media that striker Fernando Torres will remain at Chelsea FC next season because the club needs three healthy strikers. This strategy was on display last season when Mourinho had a rotation of Samuel Eto’o, Demba Ba, and Fernando Torres at the striker position. Mourinho even deployed forward/midfielder Andre Schurrle as a lone striker but that was more of a sign of desperation than a tactical masterclass.
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This news may come as a disappointment to those Chelsea fans who wantred to see Fernando Torres get the boot this season in favor of Romelu Lukaku. Some are still holding out hope that Torres is let go and Chelsea bring on another forward with the club reportedly eyeing Edison Cavani. That still would not solve the club’s homegrown player issue which will see them forced to sell a non-homegrown player to meet the maximum requirement.
"“No. Three strikers is fundamental in a squad and we have three strikers; Fernando, Didier and Diego so one of them is not (going) for sure”“We have a good squad. The perfect squad would be with this 18 players, not 17 or 16, but rules are rules and we are working hard, even here, for not to have these kind of problems in the future.”“(We want) to have more English players in our squad which we are going to have in the future but in this moment we are still in the middle of this process. So at the moment we have to make a decision about one player not to be on that list.”-Jose MourinhoSource: Sky Sports"
The issue of too many non-homegrown players has reared its ugly head at Chelsea and could reportedly lead to the club selling Petr Cech. Ideally they would send an underperformer like Fernando Torres away but if Mourinho is to be believed then the Spanish striker is not going anywhere this summer.
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