Jose Mourinho to cast further doubts over the future of Fernando Torres, by saying the striker has only been "so-so" after his move to Chelsea, while insisting Roman Abramovich never interfered with his transfer policies during his first reign at the club.
Torres has been widely tipped to leave the Blues in the summer, with Chelsea linked with some of the best strikers around Europe, including Edinson Cavani, Hulk and Robert Lewandowski.
Mourinho previously said he would make a decision on Torres' future only after holding face-to-face talks with the 29-year-old, who is currently with Spain at the Confederations Cup.
Now the Portuguese has admitted the striker has been underwhelming at times, even if he might not have been as bad as portrayed.
"Torres so far is so-so," Mourinho said. "Somebody could expect more because of his potential, because of what he did before. But not so bad as people sometimes try to say.
"There is a balance. Normally, the tendency is to say it was a big mistake. It was a big mistake because it didn't work."
Torres was bought from Liverpool for £50 million ($78 million) in January 2011, and after failing to hit the expected heights at Stamford Bridge, he has been compared to another Chelsea player who failed to live up to a huge transfer fee - Andriy Shevchenko.
Some reports at the time suggested Shevchenko was Abramovich's choice, but Mourinho refuted those reports outright.
"Shevchenko? It's not true the owner forced him on me," the Portuguese said.
"Never, never during my time did the owner interfere in the basic things of the manager -- training sessions, team selection, the profile of player I want to bring.
"Do you want to know the truth about Shevchenko? I hope the board is not upset with me. We wanted to buy Samuel Eto'o, he was our target. We wanted Eto'o and the owner was more than ready to do everything to bring Eto'o here.
"He was the player I wanted. Why? Because Eto'o was the only player I could play with Didier Drogba, changing the system for two strikers.
"But he was also ready to play with Drogba with the system we had at the time, with three attacking players with Eto'o coming from the sides.
"I did the same with him at Inter Milan. We wanted Eto'o and the boss did everything to bring Eto'o and Peter Kenyon did everything.
"In the end, Barcelona said, 'We don't sell, forget it, forget it. Not any price.' The owner did everything to get him, but it was not possible.
"After that, we went to other options and got to Shevchenko. I was happy with him."
