Victor Moses could be a surprise squad inclusion thanks to homegrown status

Hands up if you thought that Victor Moses might have a role to play in the first team this season. None of you? That's what I thought. But Jose Mourinho says things might be otherwise:

Victor is from a position where we have many solutions. We have Hazard, Willian, Salah and Schürrle. Victor’s best position is from the sides, but he is English and at this moment we have one foreign player who has to leave.

So, until the end of the month, we have to make that decision and Victor is involved in this process, and maybe stays or maybe leaves, but because he is home-grown he is something we have to analyse as well.

Source: Telegraph.

This quote confirms a few things. First of all, and perhaps most importantly for Chelsea's long-term future, it now seems certain that Thibaut Courtois does not count as homegrown under the Premier League's rules thanks to his three years of club control being spent at Atletico Madrid rather than in England. So that's annoying.

Secondly, it confirms that Oriol Romeu was not in fact who Jose Mourinho meant when he said he was planning on getting rid of a foreign player. I had hoped that when the midfield was loaned to Stuttgart for the season we might have gotten our non-homegrown player tally under control, but nope. So that's annoying.

And thirdly it confirms just how important homegrown status is. Victor Moses had a good season in 2012/13, but since then he hasn't really done much of anything, falling flat with Liverpool last year and generally failing to impress. And yet he might get a place on this Chelsea team. I don't think any of Hazard, Willian, Schurrle and Salah are at risk here, mind -- Salah might go out on loan -- so I'm not sure exactly how much playing time Moses might get even if he stays, but it's clear that being homegrown is enormously important.