International team-mate Juan Sebastian Veron was dis-carded and is going to spend the next year at Inter Milan on loan.
However, since returning to Chelsea's training ground in Harlington, Crespo has impressed Mourinho enough for the ex Porto boss to consider keeping him on the books.
It appears more and more likely that Eidur Gudjohnsen will be the key striker next season, with Mourinho singling him out for particular individual praise on numerous occasions since taking charge.
Mourinho said: "At the moment, pure strikers, we have one that for me day after day I am thinking is better than what I thought. Eidur. And he's improving a lot, and I believe that the specificity of our work can improve him a lot. So I'm really happy with that.
"Second is Kezman. He's here for two reasons, because he can be a target man, he can be a wide man on the right side when we want to play with some attacker on the right side.
"And we need a third man who can be Hernan Crespo. We have to decide in the next few days, and I mean we, we as a club, Hernan, Hernan's family, what is going to happen with Hernan.
"If the decision is for Hernan to go looking for a new club, we have an open space.
"What I can say is that Didier Drogba is one of the best strikers in Europe and since I played against him and I start looking at him through different eyes, I feel he needs a better club and a better league to show what he really is.
"So he can become a good option if in the next days we decide about Hernan."
Hopefully Hernan stays, as he had a very unfortunate season last year and I really think he could shine up front next season. With a combination of Mutu, Crespo, Gudjohnsen and new boy Kezman, Mourinho may be forced to play his famous 4-3-3 formation he adopted at Porto. However, this is played more like the Netherlands forward line with two wider men and a target man.
Either way, next season is going to be a blast!