WHY SAY ANYTHING?

The first impression is that he will. Already Jon Obi Mikel has spoken of a more united dressing room since Mourinho went. There are rumours that Eden Hazard is also happier although he actually improved considerably when Jose first returned. Still, that relationship also seemed to have turned sour.

Michael Emenalo, Chelsea’s technical director cited “palpable discord” between the players and Mourinho as the main reason for his sacking but then rather contradicted this by saying that the players had followed instructions, given by Mourinho,to the letter.

This was clearly an attempt to absolve any of the players of any blame in the same way as a military officer will be blamed for the failings of his troops and morale will be increased, (hopefully).

The problem with this is that outside observers point out that the players followed his instructions to the letter last season and won the title. So, either Jose got it completely wrong by changing his instructions to the team this season, or it is a little more smoke blown over the situation. One has to assume that, had the players been following his instructions to the letter, then Chelsea would not be in the mess they are in at present.

Mourinho virtually said as much after the Leicester City game when he accused the players of betraying him. At this stage he probably knew that the writing was on the wall because such a public display of petulance was never going to go down well with the hierarchy, a fact of which Mourinho was well aware.

As has been said though, it is easier to sack one manager than six or seven players. The fact is that those six or seven players, (if it was that many), can still be problematical in the future and Chelsea, having disposed of “Captain Bligh” will not want another mutiny on their hands in the future.

This is where Guus Hiddink is the right choice. He may not win a trophy this season, he may not qualify for the Champion’s League this season, but he will gain the respect of the players quite quickly. He doesn’t suffer from the same afflictions as Mourinho whereby he will antagonise players, other managers and anybody with whom he doesn’t agree. He will be a calming influence but is strict enough to deal with any players who step out of line. He has already stated that any unhappy player is welcome to visit his office for a chat but pointed out that it would be a very short chat.

The potential problems may lay further down the line depending upon who Chelsea appoint to replace Hiddink. This, of course, assumes that Hiddink, at 69 years of age, doesn’t want the job past the end of this season. If he does and he turns the club round and achieves a measure of success he would probably be given an extension to his current contract of a year or so.

At some stage he will need to be replaced and part of his brief now should be identifying problematical players. Then, either he can be active in replacing them, or he can have a dossier ready for the next manager to do so.

Either way, those players need to be rooted out. It is difficult to believe that Chelsea’s problems of this season will magically disappear just because Jose Mourinho is no longer there. They may have removed the source of some of the problem, they certainly haven’t solved all of it.

Problems are like affairs, it usually takes at least two to cause them. Up to now Chelsea have only revealed one of the culprits, somewhere in the corridors or training grounds of Stamford Bridge lies the other half of the issue, whether that be one person or several. Chelsea would do well to remedy this as soon as is possible.