Patrick Barclay: Jose Mourinho is ruthless - would Abou Diaby still be at Chelsea?

The arrival of Juan Cuadrado at Stamford Bridge is exciting, for only the more televisual spectacle of James Rodriguez — featuring the goal of the tournament — overshadowed the Colombian winger’s contribution to the World Cup.

Cuadrado was quick enough, and more than tricky enough, to command the eye but even more impressive was his willingness to make the team pattern work, especially as it unashamedly consisted of a goalkeeper, nine men with jobs to do and a blissfully free (rightly so) James. So Cuadrado ticked Jose Mourinho’s boxes.

Mourinho demands that his flair players work the opposition in both directions; hence, earlier in his career, the special status of Deco and, more recently, the jettisoning of Juan Mata while the more energetic Eden Hazard flourishes. But the latest signing points to an equally important element of Mourinho’s management.

For, while Cuadrado joins Chelsea from Fiorentina, Mohamed Salah goes in the other direction on loan, the young Egyptian knowing that his hopes of a glittering Chelsea career have faded.

It’s ruthless, in a way, but not every manager would so swiftly question an internal judgement. Salah came to the Bridge, after all, on Mourinho’s watch — Basle were paid £11 million for him last winter — and reality still descends. In the form, admittedly, of banishment to one of the world’s great cities.

But Salah may take it as ominous that his new team-mates include a few discards from the Premier League’s top level, including Micah Richards. His task is to prove Mourinho wrong. If he does, Chelsea have an option to take him back.

Thus Mourinho challenges players, reacts to indications of possible weakness by putting the onus on them. Even in the case of Salah, who was a Mourinho buy. It is a different style to that of, say, Arsene Wenger, who seems to treat every player with the patience of a saint.

Let’s put this brutally: would Abou Diaby still be at Chelsea?