Claude Makelele has lifted the lid on Jose Mourinho's
tenure at Chelsea, and has not been complimentary. The French
midfielder, who is now on the books of Paris St Germain, spent five
years at Stamford Bridge between 2003 and
2008.
He was taken to England by Claudio Ranieri, but played under the
Italian for just one season before he was unceremoniously
sacked.
Mourinho, fresh from helping Porto win the UEFA Champions
League, was appointed in his place and quickly made his mark upon
his arrival with the Blues.
He enjoyed considerable success throughout his first two seasons
at the club, but saw his relationship with his players and the
Chelsea hierarchy begin to unravel when his philosophies were
questioned.
"For two years at Chelsea we lived as a group of friends, dining
together, getting drunk together, going to training together and
winning matches together," Makelele writes in his autobiography
Tout Simplement.
"Between 2004 and 2006 the solidarity in the Chelsea camp was
amazing. Mourinho then broke all that when he banned key elements
and treated certain players as 'stars'.
"Very early on in the 2006/07 season, Mourinho took a step back
from his players. In that one day, the brotherhood spirit that had
gathered us around him was harmed.
"Then he had a bust-up with (Roman) Abramovich. The chairman
asked the players to express themselves more freely on the pitch,
but Mourinho stubbornly refused to change his methods.
"A relationship at the top of the club was broken and the
players began to feel it. "During that third complete season under
his control, I was stunned to see how Mourinho forget the value of
his players and claimed all the credit for the results.
"To him, individuals didn't make the team work well, his methods
did. At the end we felt that he was in danger as soon as a player
was under the spotlight more than him."
