- Chelsea have lost three Premier League game already this season
- Employees at the club don't agree with the treatment of Eva Carneiro
- Some of the issues can be traced back to last season and Jose Mourinho's frustration with Diego Costa goes deeper than his injury problems
As
Jose Mourinho stomps around the training ground, Chelsea employees dive
into side rooms or peek around corners to avoid their temperamental
manager.
Nobody wants to come into contact with him these days. Not when the mood is black and the atmosphere oppressive.
Mourinho
will not speak about the moment he shouted ‘filho da puta’ at the
club’s popular doctor Eva Carneiro during the 2-2 draw with Swansea City
on the opening day of the Barclays Premier League season. Privately,
employees at the club are firmly on her side.
Jose Mourinho has looked a completely different character with Chelsea so far this season
Dr Eva Carneiro was berated by Mourinho for going on the pitch to treat Eden Hazard against Swansea
The incident, which also saw physio Jon Fearn relieved of first-team duties, caused a national outcry
Mourinho has remained sullen-faced for the majority of the first six weeks of this Premier League campaign
Roman Abramovich’s partner Dasha
Zhukova, along with the wives and partners of the players, is rumoured
to have felt Mourinho was heavy-handed
It is one of the reasons Mourinho is struggling to motivate the dressing room, creating tension between him and the players.
Carneiro
has not been to work for the past 36 days, in limbo as Chelsea prepare
for a potential civil action that could cost them hundreds of thousands
of pounds in damages.
Mourinho
is refusing to apologise, to take responsibility for publicly calling
out a highly-respected member of the medical profession during an
explosive confrontation.
There
are rumours at the club that Roman Abramovich’s partner Dasha Zhukova,
along with the wives and partners of the players, felt Mourinho was
heavy-handed and disrespectful. He is struggling to hold this team
together, to unite this dressing room after they slipped to their third
defeat of the season at Everton on Saturday.
It
was a pitiful performance, with the body language of the players when
they stepped off the team bus suggesting they were about to surrender.
Where was the swagger of champions, the aura that is usually associated
with Mourinho’s title-winning teams?
Some
of the issues can be traced back to last season and the manager’s
frustration with Diego Costa goes much deeper than the continued
frustrations with the £32million striker’s troublesome hamstrings. After
Chelsea had sewn up the title with a 1-0 win over Crystal Palace on May
3, Mourinho rewarded his players with four days off to give them time
to celebrate.
Costa,
who flew to Madrid to party, indulged a little bit too much and took an
extra day. Mourinho responded by axing him from the team that drew 1-1
at Anfield on May 10, but by then the problems were beginning to pile up
for Costa.
Over a
three-week period in the build up to the title triumph there had been
numerous complaints about loud noise and parties at chez Costa. By then,
the goals had pretty much dried up.
Physically
the Brazilian is back in good shape this season, with Chelsea players
noting that he has returned to peak condition following the summer’s
excesses. Despite that, he has scored just once.
Radamel
Falcao, the back-up striker who shares the same agent, Jorge Mendes, as
Mourinho, is paid £150,000 per week by Chelsea as part of the
arrangement with his parent club Monaco. He has made little impact.
There
is also resistance among the players to Mourinho’s autocratic — yet
hugely successful — system, a legacy from last season’s title run-in.
There are players in that team — Oscar, Willian and Eden Hazard — who
would prefer to play with more flair.
Mourinho also has an ongoing feud with last season's top goalscorer Diego Costa
Costa annoyed the Chelsea boss by taking an extra day's holiday after winning the title in May
Costa was pictured with DJ Benny Benassi in Ibiza as he took time off from Chelsea duty in August
But Mourinho is unmoved and the downturn in results this season have made him dig in even more.
To
get out of this hole the manager will have to address the internal
divisions that are creating so much conflict and bring the players back
on side.
This
was supposed to be the year when the academy players would flourish,
with Mourinho promising at the end of last season that he would
integrate four youngsters in the first-team squad. Abramovich is
applying the squeeze from above.
Everyone
at the club is under pressure to end the 18-year wait for a youth-team
graduate to become a regular fixture in the first team. The wait will go
on.
There
is a general perception within the game that Mourinho will not promote
young players, a theory that cost the Portuguese the chance to succeed
Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United.
When
they met with Mourinho, United’s powerbrokers were not convinced that
he would continue the great traditions of the club by developing young
players.
England Under 19 international Dominic Solanke has surprisingly been loaned out to Vitesse
Mourinho has Chelsea employees diving into side rooms or peek around corners to avoid his moods
They called it right, with a staggering 33 Chelsea players currently out on loan to other clubs.
At
academy level there is surprise that Dominic Solanke, one of the most
talented young forwards in the country, has been loaned to Vitesse
Arnhem. Most assumed he would be Chelsea’s fourth striker this year.
Instead the club are deep in crisis, with the excuses that this team was
under-prepared for the season ahead long forgotten after their alarming
start to the season.
This
is another big week for Mourinho, starting with Wednesday’s Champions
League game at home to Maccabi Tel Aviv followed by the visit of Arsenal
on Saturday.
The
last time Chelsea played Arsene Wenger’s team — in the Community Shield
clash at Wembley last month, Mourinho lost to the Frenchman for the
first time in his managerial career.
If he is beaten again, Mourinho will be running for cover.
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