Mourinho: Chelsea won't sell Torres this summer

It had been suggested that the Blues were keen to sell the mis-firing Spaniard due to the fact they need to sell a foreign player to comply with the Premier League’s rules for a 25-man squad.

Torres scored only 11 goals in all competitions last season and has had a difficult pre-season with Chelsea.

Mourinho has reinforced his striking options with the £32 million capture of Diego Costa from Atletico Madrid and the return of legendary figure Didier Drogba.

However, Demba Ba has joined Besiktas and on Wednesday Romelu Lukaku signed for Everton in a deal worth £28 million.

As such, Mourinho says he wants to retain Torres to ensure he has a full complement of strikers going into the new season.

When asked by Sky Sports News if Torres would not be sold, Mourinho replied: “For sure. Three strikers is fundamental in the squad and we have three, Nando is one of them.”

Mourinho’s show of faith in Torres is likely to increase speculation that goalkeeper Petr Cech will be sold to Paris Saint-Germain as Chelsea have one too many foreign players over the age of 21.

“We have a good squad, the perfect squad would be with these 18 players (who are foreign and over the age of 21), not 17,” he said.

“We are working hard to have more English players in our squad but at the moment we are still in the middle of that process.”