Juan Mata linked to Tottenham despite Jose Mourinho explaining the need for Willian

The Daily Mail are running a story this morning telling us that Tottenham have interest in Juan Mata. That seems perfectly logical, as Mata would have a place on any team in Europe. Tottenham are no exception, with or without a sale of Gareth Bale.

I wouldn't get too worked up about that rumor though, as there are pretty obvious reasons that this sort of move would never happen. First and foremost, why exactly would we sell to Spurs? If Mata was actually available for some ridiculous reason, there's no chance in hell that Tottenham would come in with the largest bid. Too many other clubs with deep pockets would have interest, many of whom wouldn't be a domestic rival (of sorts) either.

More importantly though, why the heck would Juan Mata want to move from Chelsea to Spurs? He wouldn't have Champions League football this year (and he'd hardly be guaranteed it going forward), they couldn't offer the sort of money he deserves, and they're an awful club to deal with when better offers come around. The player would have absolutely no reason to want this sort of move, putting another nail in the coffin of this particular rumor.

There was something of note in The Mail article though, buried all the way at the bottom. They ran some quotes from Jose Mourinho about the reasoning behind adding Willian, and frankly, it makes a lot of sense:

‘It is a crucial department for us. It is crucial because of the game we want to play and the intensity we want to have. We need alternatives and rotation and we need players to keep that intensity and that dynamic.'

‘In this moment it looks like we have a lot but when we get to September — and I am not talking October, November, December, January, I am talking about September — we have the Premier League, the Champions League, the Capital One Cup, a double national team fixture.  When this time arrives, 22 players is not a big squad and when you can add more quality it is not a problem. It’s a solution. A problem is for the managers without enough quality in their team.’

As I said above, this statement from the boss makes all sorts of sense, especially given his comments about Eden Hazard playing defense. We saw last year that Chelsea are a far more effective unit when they are pressing very heavily and high up the pitch, and that takes more of a toll on our attacking band than the rest of the squad. Quality depth is a major issue if a team is going to press relentlessly as we did in the first half of the opener, and we'll likely see quite a few substitutions and considerable rotation to the band because of that.

If I was going to watch for one thing in particular today, it would be the pressure from the trio that Mourinho runs out behind the striker. If Jose's idea is to press the opposition heavily, he's not going to be able to run guys like Eden Hazard, Juan Mata, Willian, and Oscar out there for 90 minutes twice a week. It's funny that an article giving us quotes explaining the need for further depth goes on to suggest we'd consider selling some of it, but I suppose that's what sells.

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