Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic has admitted that the players are responsible for Jose Mourinho’s exit in December, claiming they couldn’t handle the pressure of retaining their Premier League crown.
The Special One was dismissed last year with the English champions sitting just one point above the relegation zone having played 16 league games.
Mourinho had led them to a domestic double the previous season, winning the Capital One Cup alongside the Premier League.
Their demise led to many players being accused of not playing for the manager in the final few weeks of his tenure, most notably Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas who were booed by their own fans on Boxing Day last year.
However Ivanovic, who has experienced the regimes of more managers than most during his seven-and-a-half years in West London, claims it was the pressure of replicating their form from the previous season that led Chelsea to flop this time around.
Talking to The Independent, the defender said:
He is the Special One, he is the Perfect One. Completely indifferent from anyone else.
Jose told us the hardest season in football is the year after you win…everyone has extra motivation.
We lost control of our game, of our minds. We didn’t know what was going wrong around us.
He added that he and his teammates failed to “deal with the pressure” of the new campaign, a theme which accelerated as Chelsea’s season continued to falter significantly.
The Serbian was quick to deflect any blame from Mourinho however, claiming that the added pressure didn’t come from the boss.
He did not change anything. He was the same.
I think, player by player, we could not deal with the pressure of what being champions in England means.
I think…if Roman Abramovich could have, he would have changed all of us [the players] as well.
It is difficult to say it is only one guy’s responsibility.
Source: The Independent
Chelsea’s fortunes have improved since Mourinho’s sacking – Ivanovic claims it “woke up” and “scared” the players – and they are yet to lose in the League under Guus Hiddink’s regime.
While the top four is most likely out of sight, the Blues are still fighting in the Champions League and face a crunch match with PSG on Wednesday evening as they attempt to overturn a 2-1 deficit against the French champions.
Ivanovic himself signed a new deal with the Blues recently to keep him at the club until 2017, and he looks set to become the senior figure among the squad when John Terry’s contract expires in the summer.
