Jose Mourinho shoots down Salah exit talk

In the wake of Chelsea doing horrible, horrible things to Swansea City earlier today I don't think I'd have had any questions to ask in the post-match presser except 'wow?', but some enterprising journalist asked Jose Mourinho about the future of Mohamed Salah, who was again left on the bench.

The answer was completely unsurprising:

[Salah] can’t leave. I have 20 players. Today, with Didier a bit ill and Azpilicueta injured, I had here all my players with young Ake in the stands. I have a very short squad and I need everybody. For Salah to leave somebody has to come, and I don’t think we are going to let Salah go on loan and buy a £50 million player.

Source: ChelseaFC.com

The only Chelsea-quality inside forwards who might plausibly be on the market are Marco Reus and Juan Cuadrado, and I think we can safely say it's unlikely that either of them ends up at Stamford Bridge in February. And yeah, Mourinho has a point here: even if Salah hasn't been very good this season, he's still better than literally not having anyone at all. If Chelsea are going to lose him, he has to be replaced. And if they're going to do any buying, it should probably be someone good ... which is the sort of purchase that's unlikely in the winter window.

All of which is to say that Jose's still on his BORING JANUARY message.