CheLOLsea

[Hoop Blah]

I bet you'll still be able to read bollocks about Jose being the master at mind games and the best man-manager around though.

[paultheroyal]

Pedro with his first goal since August to make it 2-0 to #CFC. Chelsea fans singing: 'Where were you when you were shit?' What a day ..'

[AthleticoSpizz]

The Chelsea familoly

Turning on the players "they love"

[AthleticoSpizz]

....then turning back again of course.........a 3-1 victory always helps

Classy

[Ian Royal]

I'm amazed that they're still defending Mourinho given their position is even more clearly emphasised as his fault for alienating virtually everyone at the club and damaging the team.

[AthleticoSpizz]

day in the life of a Chelsea fan...I guess

They'll get over Jose

"Families" get over their lolosses

[Royal Rother]

I'm amazed that they're still defending Mourinho given their position is even more clearly emphasised as his fault for alienating virtually everyone at the club and damaging the team.

Did you need reminding that Chelsea fans are a bit thick?

[No Fixed Abode]

I'm amazed that they're still defending Mourinho given their position is even more clearly emphasised as his fault for alienating virtually everyone at the club and damaging the team.

Did you need reminding that Chelsea fans are a bit thick?

Nothing like stereotyping eh Royal Rother...

[No Fixed Abode]

Wow boos from Chelsea fans as Ivanovic, Fabregas, Matic and Costa's names were read out by the PA announcer here

What a club

People having different opinions on what happened shocker. Who knew!

[brighton_royal]

I'm amazed that they're still defending Mourinho given their position is even more clearly emphasised as his fault for alienating virtually everyone at the club and damaging the team.

Did you need reminding that Chelsea fans are a bit thick?

Nothing like stereotyping eh Royal Rother...

They are a bit thick though.

[No Fixed Abode]

Did you need reminding that Chelsea fans are a bit thick?

Nothing like stereotyping eh Royal Rother...

They are a bit thick though.

Like people who smoke despite all the health warnings.

[brighton_royal]

Good job I don't smoke then Kes.

[No Fixed Abode]

Good job I don't smoke then Kes.

Butt you did.

[Ouroboros]

Gr8 to see the fans sticking by Jose last night.

The Chelsea family in full unity. Clubs could learn a thing or two from our support. Gr8 scenes.

Any update on this?

[No Fixed Abode]

Gr8 to see the fans sticking by Jose last night.

The Chelsea family in full unity. Clubs could learn a thing or two from our support. Gr8 scenes.

Any update on this?

Well, we did stick by him to a certain extent. He certainly wouldn't have got the boot being 1 point off the top six.

[LUX]

Chelsea four points clear of relegation. Unless Swansea win now. Then it's one point.

You wouldn't do that would you Swansea You know, for the country.

[Mr Angry]

Good article by Oliver Holt at the weekend pointing out that, if the Chelsea players failed to respond to Mourinho, whose fault is that?

I don't recall the players publically describing the club Doctor and Club Physio in the terms that the Manager did, nor the players demanding to start pre season early; Mourinho has screwed up big time, probably thinking because he was who he was, he was above getting the sack (he all but dared Abramovich to do that in his post Southampton defeat rant).

The writing was on the wall for Jose back in August and his sacking came as no surprise (I recall predicting he would be gone by Xmas); but to employ Hiddink because of a half season of success 6 Years ago (and despite his serial failures since - including most recently his inability to get a Dutch team that finished 3rd in the 2014 World Cup to qualify for the Euros where the number of finalists is the largest ever) is incredible.

[LUX]

I don't mind Mourinho. I accept all the criticisms of him, but he gives a "good" interview and spices up football, which needs it. Hope he goes to a decent club this time.

[Hoop Blah]

A decent, if a bit long, take on why Mourinho had to go.

Even by the turbulent standards that have become the norm during Roman Abramovich’s 12 years as owner, this has been an extraordinary season at Chelsea. Having expressed a desire to stay at the club for another decade this year, José Mourinho was sacked after less than ten months, with his departure being prefaced by players fighting on the training ground and his desperate search for traitors in the dressing room.

The Portuguese had been speaking to Abramovich on a regular basis, usually on the phone, and after being shocked by his dismissal on Thursday will have spent the past 48 hours wondering: how did it come to this?
Abramovich and Mourinho’s second partnership may only have been a marriage of convenience, rather than the heart-warming reunion of star-crossed lovers it was portrayed as when he returned to Stamford Bridge in the summer of 2013, but despite that they still shared several goals.

The Chelsea owner wanted a proven winner to build a new team for the next decade after employing seven different managers in six years, while Mourinho was desperate to prove that he could sustain success over a longer period having spent the previous ten years hopping between Europe’s elite clubs, a feeling that intensified after a spectacular fall from grace in his third and final season at Real Madrid.

When Mourinho signed a new four-year contract worth £38 million the day before the Barclays Premier League season started in August after bringing his third title to Chelsea three months earlier, the project appeared to be going to plan, yet 122 days later Abramovich sacked him once again.

Mourinho would tell you that the seeds of his fall were sown on April 23 when he submitted a list of transfer targets to Chelsea’s board including John Stones, the Everton central defender, Raphaël Varane, the Real Madrid centre half and Paul Pogba, the Juventus midfielder, but the rot had set in before then. Chelsea’s 5-3 defeat by Tottenham Hotspur on New Year’s Day after a congested festive programme exposed the side’s limitations, particularly physically, and was a setback from which some of the players never recovered despite going on to win the league.

Diego Costa, for example, has scored only nine league goals this year, while the previously rock-solid central defensive partnership of John Terry and Gary Cahill, destroyed by Harry Kane on that memorable evening, has looked vulnerable since.

Mourinho’s response to the White Hart Lane defeat was to revert to his naturally defensive type, abandoning the free-flowing football that had taken them to the top of the table in such style, and although Chelsea ground out enough results to win the league in the process he lost the unwavering support of some of those most responsible, particularly the club’s flair players.

It seems no coincidence that Hazard has scored only six league goals this year — and none since May 3 — because Mourinho increasingly burdened the Belgium player with defensive responsibilities, crushing the creativity that helped him to dominate the Player of the Year awards last season.

As Chelsea stuttered during last spring’s run-in, Mourinho became increasingly hard on his players, with several noting that he was toughest of all on the quieter personalities.

Hazard, Oscar and Nemanja Matic, in particular, were subjected to savage criticism even as they closed in on the title — with the Serbia midfield player being told he could not pass the ball after one match — while Mourinho’s intolerant attitude towards young players was encapsulated when he criticised Ruben Loftus-Cheek for delivering an “unacceptable” performance during a post-season friendly in Sydney, after which he also claimed that their relationship had taken a “step backwards”.

That headline-grabbing comment about a 19-year-old new to the first team proved portentous, because before long it also applied to Mourinho’s relationship with many other members of the squad.

That 20,000-mile round-trip undertaken for commercial reasons in June, which also took in a friendly in Thailand, was also hugely damaging, as the resultant fatigue contributed to one of Mourinho’s biggest mistakes, the decision to have the players report late for pre-season training the month after.

Costa admitted in October that he started the campaign overweight and The Times has learnt that he was not the only one, after several players failed to stick to their holiday fitness programmes due to sheer exhaustion. Costa’s indiscipline was also an issue towards the end of last season, when having being given some time off after Chelsea clinched the title he returned to the training ground a day later than the rest of his team-mates.
A combination of lethargy and fatigue resulted in Chelsea’s summer training camp in Montreal being flat despite Mourinho’s prompting and their performances in friendlies in the United States — the repeated flights in and out of the country were another error — were dire, which is when the manager’s relationships with certain players began to deteriorate.

Chelsea were humiliated in their first pre-season game, losing 4-2 to a team largely comprised of teenagers from the New York Red Bulls academy, after which Mourinho refused to speak to his players in the dressing room. With Chelsea failing to win any of their five pre-season matches the atmosphere was tense even before the campaign began, with Mourinho causing anger in the dressing room by bringing up the Red Bulls defeat and accusing his players of “losing to a Mickey Mouse” team on the eve of their Premier League opener at home to Swansea City.

The 2-2 draw is remembered for the start of the self-destructive and appallingly handled Eva Carneiro affair, with Mourinho already showing signs of imploding 24 hours after signing his new contract.

With only one game gone, Mourinho was already far from “The Happy One” he had styled himself at his unveiling 12 months earlier, but then again his self-image has never been very accurate. At the start of the fourth and final season of his first spell in charge in 2007 — which lasted a month — he described himself as “The Mellow One,” but was never anything of the sort and his essence never really changed. Even having passed 50 before starting his second reign, Mourinho was as intense and abrasive as ever, propelled by a ferocious work ethic and a persecution complex, which proved unsustainable. It would be inaccurate to say that Mourinho did not change at all, however, as he proved far more adept at managing up second time around.

He accepted the club’s financial restrictions and striving for profitability without complaint; he had no problems working with the technical director, Michael Emenalo, and Abramovich’s closest aide, Marina Granovskaia, despite their limited experience of elite football and was almost always on message about his limited role in player recruitment, a far cry from the frequent rows that brought a premature ending to his first stay at Chelsea.
Mourinho accepted Chelsea’s decision to release Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole when he wanted them to stay 18 months ago, and even when the players he asked for last summer failed to arrive complaints were muted, and limited to his acknowledgement in September that he was not responsible for the signing of Papy Djilobodji from Nantes.

For their part, Chelsea backed their manager, even in his scandalous treatment of Carneiro and releasing statements endorsing his aggressive attitude towards referees that resulted in him being found guilty of misconduct on three separate occasions this season.

In contrast to his previous departure, therefore, Mourinho’s downfall sprang from his inability to maintain a good relationship with his players, rather than with Abramovich and his advisers. Unlike in 2007 there were no tears during the brief farewells at Cobham on Thursday afternoon, and although some players felt sad, most of them had simply had enough of him.

Mourinho’s attitude towards some has been little short of contemptuous, as he has despaired of their poor form and become obsessed by searching for sources of so-called leaks, as The Times revealed on Wednesday. For a long time his suspicions were wrongly focused on Hazard, whom he confronted on one occasion, asking him whether he was intentionally undermining him. Mourinho also came to regard Chelsea’s Portuguese and Brazilian players as a clique who were determined to destabilise him. Costa is believed to have confronted Mourinho on another occasion, uttering a threat in Spanish, which was heard by his team-mates.

Chelsea’s dressing room has become fractured, with the Portuguese and Spanish speakers forming two distinct groups, but the rest of the players largely going about their business. Several players have noted that the unifying presence of Didier Drogba has been missed in a squad short of natural leaders. Terry and Branislav Ivanovic have naturally focused to a large extent on their own performances as they seek new deals in the final year of their contracts, while the most obvious leader of the club’s younger generation, Thibaut Courtois, has been injured for most of the season. The result has been a power vacuum reflected in Chelsea’s listless performances on the pitch.

Again in contrast to 2007, Mourinho’s departure is not being mourned with staff at the academy for example privately hoping that his replacement will value their work more highly. Chelsea have won three of the past four FA Youth Cups, but have not produced a first-team regular since Terry almost 20 years ago, with Mourinho’s attitude shown in 32 of the club’s players being out on loan. While his backroom staff are loyal to a fault, Mourinho is also believed to have squabbled with the goalkeeping coach, Christophe Lollichon, whose close relationship with Abramovich he is thought to resent.

Mourinho’s dismissal will bring an improvement in morale and in all likelihood better results, but in the wider context of Chelsea’s future his departure raises more questions than answers. The club’s hopes of becoming a self-financing European powerhouse, who develop their own players under a long-serving manager working closely with a technical director appear further away than ever, as Emenalo has spent the last few days contemplating two managerial appointments and an expensive overhaul of the squad.

Given the club posted losses of £23.1 million last month there is little margin for error with either project if Chelsea are to remain competitive and within the limits of Uefa’s Financial Fair Play regulations.
Chelsea lost far more than the most successful manager in their history when a shell-shocked Mourinho left the training ground on Thursday. Abramovich’s vision for a stable, self-sufficient football club disappeared with Mourinho into the Surrey green belt, with Chelsea instead reverting to the crisis management mode, which along with regular silverware has been the main feature of the Russian’s ownership.

[6ft Kerplunk]

A fan's view from Baddiel:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/18/jose-mourinho-failure-chelsea-special-one