Jose Mourinho admits lack of depth could hurt Chelsea

His squad's soft underbelly was comprehensively exposed in shock Bradford loss

Jose Mourinho looks on on Saturday (Getty Images)

Jose Mourinho, the Chelsea manager, fears his squad’s lack of strength in depth may undermine their challenge for the Premier League title.

His squad’s soft underbelly was comprehensively exposed in Saturday’s FA Cup fourth-round tie against League One Bradford City, who came from 2-0 down to win 4-2 at Stamford Bridge.

Mourinho had made nine changes from Tuesday’s Capital One Cup semi-final first leg match against Liverpool and he said afterwards: “I don’t want to speak too much about this, but it is easy for you to understand now why I play almost every game with the same players. I don’t make many changes. I try to keep stability in the team. Maybe now you can understand a bit better why.”

Chelsea’s commitment to adhere to Uefa’s Financial Fair Play means Mourinho is unlikely to enter the transfer market in the final week of the January window. He did, however, hint that if he could find a buyer for Mohamed Salah and André Schürrle – the former is interesting Roma, while Wolfsburg are looking at the latter – then he could make additions. Chelsea are yet to improve on their £20m bid for Fiorentina winger Juan Cuadrado.

Mourinho said: “This is Chelsea always thinking and being proud of thinking of numbers and so on. We cannot now go to the market and spend money. I am completely with the club. I share this idea. I don’t think we are going to the market, unless someone makes a market with us.”