Mourinho: Chelsea must sell foreign player

The return of club hero Didier Drogba means the Londoners are now one man over the limit dictated by Premier League and Champions League rules relating to the home-grown player quota.

Clubs can only register 17 foreign players over the age of 21 in their 25-man squads, and Chelsea currently have 18.

“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.”

[TORRES WITH EPIC MISS IN PRE-SEASON]

Fernando Torres’ time at Stamford Bridge has been a disappointment, and despite him arriving from Liverpool for £50 million in 2011 the club are now struggling to tempt anyone, including Torres’ former club Atletico Madrid, with an asking price of £20m, report The Telegraph.

Torres’ wages of £175,000 a week are also a huge stumbling block preventing the Spaniard from being at least part of the solution to Chelsea's quota issues.

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 Fabregas 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 Ake will be part of the first-team squad, while Lewis Baker, Izzy Brown and Dominic Solanke will spend the season training with the seniors.

Another area where the Blues could offload a foreign player is in goal. They currently have three senior stoppers – Petr Cech, Thibaut Courtois and Mark Schwarzer.

Despite Courtois being the keeper of the trio with the far biggest potential, the Chelsea site currently lists him as having no 2014/15 squad number, even though it has been updated to include Drogba.

Schwarzer, 41, has signed a one-year extension which suggests one of Cech or Courtois could leave.