LONDON -- Jose Mourinho has admitted that Fernando Torres could leave Chelsea but said the striker must come to him to say it.
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AC Milan have confirmed their interest in Torres and the player's representatives have said talks with the Italian club have been positive.
Mourinho, though, says he has not heard directly from Torres that he wants to move and only when the Spain striker asks to leave would he consider a sale.
"He didn't speak with me," the Portuguese told a news conference. "What we have clear, as a club, is that we need three strikers to face the season. He is one of them. I like him as a person. I like him as a player. So if he wants to leave, it's something that he didn't say to me until this moment. Until this moment, he's our player and nothing more than that."
He said that, if Torres did want to leave, it is because he "wants to try a new life. A new club. Probably a new league."
He continued: "So if he wants to leave, which until this moment I have not heard one single word about it, I believe that it's to try to be happier than he was in the last couple of years. This is a very human club in the way the club approaches this kind of situation. If he comes to us in these last couple of days, any possibility would be analysed by us as a club and the best decision for him."
Chelsea are known to have been monitoring a number of options as a potential replacement, including Mattia Destro -- although Roma have ruled out a sale -- and Monaco's Radamel Falcao, but they must get rid of one foreign player in order to comply with Premier League regulations. Mourinho said the club can act in 24 hours if they sell Torres.
"Well, if that happens in the last hour of the market, we are in trouble," he said. "At this moment we are doing nothing because our belief is that the market is closed for us. I've believed for a long time that the squad is closed.
"We have our squad. We like our squad. It's not the perfect one, because no squad is perfect, but it's one we like. We are ready for the market to close and for us to start Sept. 1 with this squad we have, minus one foreign player. That is compulsory. Unfortunately, that is compulsory. I cannot say this is our squad, because we need because of the rules to make a decision in relation to a foreign player."