What is going on inside the Special One's head?

José Mourinho refused to answer the thorny question. Could Fede Valverde line up at right-back for Real Madrid in next Sunday's Clásico against Barcelona at the Camp Nou, in the tenth round of La Liga? The Portuguese kept his cards close to his chest.

Valverde has filled in at right-back for Real Madrid's last two matches, despite Trent Alexander-Arnold and Denzel Dumfries sitting on the bench.

Reporters pressed Mourinho on the subject after Los Blancos beat Leipzig 4-1 in the UEFA Champions League, asking whether Valverde might play there against Barcelona. "I won't talk about what will happen on Sunday, and I won't answer whether he'll play in this position again on Saturday," he said. "But I will say that Fede put in a good performance."

He went further still, in remarks carried by the newspaper "Marca": "Playing Fede as a right-back is something that pains me, because it means leaving out two players who naturally occupy this position."

Talk soon turned elsewhere. Was Thibaut Courtois the best goalkeeper he had ever worked with? Mourinho sidestepped it. "I've never done that. I've never spoken about my own players. I get asked this question a lot: pick the best eleven goalkeepers out of all the players I've coached over twenty years. But what I can say is that when Courtois joined us (Chelsea), and he was about 20 years old, he ended up playing as a starter, even though Petr Cech was then the best goalkeeper in the history of the Premier League."

His point hardened. "We won the league title with Courtois in goal, while Cech, the best of them all, had to settle for playing in the cup competitions. If I said something like that, Júlio César (the former Inter Milan goalkeeper) would call me within two minutes to say: 'Oh, so Courtois is the best then? But you won the Champions League with me!'. He would definitely call me straight away. I have always maintained this kind of respect towards my former players."