Romelu Lukaku should explain Chelsea exit, says José Mourinho

José Mourinho has indicated there was more to Romelu Lukaku’s loan move to Everton than met the eye.

Chelsea are again struggling for strikers after discovering that Samuel Eto'o will be out for at least two weeks with a groin injury.

They will have to wait until the end of the season before Lukaku can return and, asked about the Belgian at his pre-match press conference on Friday, the Chelsea manager called on him to reveal why the loan move took place.

“Romelu likes to speak,” Mourinho said. “He’s a young boy. But the only thing that he didn’t say is why he went to Everton on loan. My last contact with him was to tell him exactly that. ‘Why you never say why you are not here?’

“It’s something that he should say, because he likes to speak, the reason why he is not with Chelsea and he is in Everton.”

Lukaku said last month that it was “unfair to criticise” Mourinho for allowing him to go out on loan as he had asked to do so.

“Look, let me be honest about this,” Lukaku told the Daily Telegraph. “I did not know if I would be playing for Chelsea so I asked the manager to let me leave. We spoke and I told him.”

There had been suggestions that Mourinho could move for the Colombia striker Jackson Martinez, currently at Porto, but the manager said he was happy with his forward options Fernando Torres, Eto'o and Demba Ba.

Mourinho added: “It’s not true what I read a couple of days ago, that the agent was in London and was meeting with me or Chelsea directors. It’s not true at all.

“In the January market we are not going to buy any striker. We will go to the end of the season with Fernando, with Samuel and with Demba. Nobody to go in, nobody to go out.”