Jose Mourinho: I would have sold Juan Mata to Arsenal or Man City too

Jose Mourinho has insisted that he would have sold Juan Mata to Arsenal or Manchester City if their Premier League title rivals had offered the same deal as Manchester United.

The 25-year-old playmaker is expected to pen a four-and-a-half year contract with the defending champions after the Red Devils announced that they had agreed “a club-record fee”, reported to be £37m, with the Blues on Friday night.

Yes [I would sell to Arsenal or Manchester City]. Obviously. A team can only play with 11 players and it can’t play with 12

Jose Mourinho

Arsene Wenger and City boss Manuel Pellegrini both criticised the Mata deal ahead of this weekend’s FA Cup fixtures, despite United trailing leaders Arsenal by 14 points.

But Mourinho downplayed the significance of Chelsea selling to a Premier League rival, adding that he was unable to accommodate Mata in his starting line-up with Eden Hazard, Oscar and Willian in fine form.

“It’s not true [that Chelsea are helping a title rival],” Mourinho said at his pre-match media conference.

“Manchester United are 14 points behind Arsenal – and 14 points is a lot. It’s almost an impossible job to recover 14 points from Arsenal and 13 points from Manchester City – and even 12 points from us is hard.

“If a similar situation happens instead of United, but it is Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool or Tottenham, we would do the same if the offer was the same and if Juan desired to go. There’s nothing more I can say.”

He added: “Yes [I would sell to Arsenal or Manchester City]. Obviously. A team can only play with 11 players and it can’t play with 12.

“Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool and Manchester United are full of top players. If Juan plays for them, it means that somebody is not playing. So why not?

“Other clubs do this in different countries, so why not here?”