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Chelsea’s meek title defense resulted in Jose Mourinho losing his managerial position back in December. Now, Cesc Fabregas has opened up about the reasons behind Jose Mourinho and Chelsea’s failure on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football.
The 2014/15 season had seen Chelsea win the Premier League by finishing eights points clear of their nearest challenger. Mourinho added to that success by also claiming the League Cup. However, the 2015/16 season saw Chelsea lose nine of their initial 16 league games. Languishing in 16th and out of the title race by early December, Mourinho was sacked.
Rumors swirled as to the reasons behind the drastic slide in fortunes for the London club. As was typical, Mourinho found himself at center stage in the proceedings. A celebrated man manager who routinely shouldered the blame of his player’s failings, something was clearly not right near the end of his second spell at Chelsea.
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The manager was loved by supporters and the players of Chelsea began to come under intense scrutiny from Stamford Bridge faithful for their inability to support the work of Mourinho. Much like the end of his time with Real Madrid, it was clear that somewhere along the lines a massive falling out had occured between players and manager.
Players like Diego Costa, Eden Hazard and Fabregas took much of the abuse. Fabregas too believes that the players ultimately failed their manager.
“I have huge respect for [Mourinho],” said Fabregas. “The biggest problem was he trusted us too much, gave us more holiday because we were champions and we let him down. That was the main reason he had to go - and for that myself and the team feel bad for it.”
While Fabregas might be seen as supporting Mourinho and blaming the players, there is a degree of criticism towards Mourinho with what he says. Fabregas believes that “to retain things means you have to work [more than] double than the year before”, while Mourinho was apparently non-pulsed over giving his team extra time off.
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This sort of decision clearly wouldn’t have sat well with Fabregas, a player whose won a World Cup, two European Championships and a La Liga title. Perhaps the Mourinho that returned to Chelsea, the Mourinho who recoined himself as ‘The Happy One’ during his second stint, had simply lost the necessary edge to repeat as champions.
Is Mourinho suffering from a loss of competitive desire, a weariness after managing seven different clubs over the course of 15 years? If the rumors regarding talks with PSG over becoming their new manager are true, this could certainly be the case.
Mourinho, when talking about his love for the Premier League, previously stated: “I always say that I need competition and I need competition every week.” Managing PSG would be a step away from that mentality, it would be a step towards comfortability in the form of little domestic competition, a fat pay check and a beautiful locale.
