While optimism has peaked for Liverpool following the hiring of Jurgen Klopp, things have gone sour rather quickly for Chelsea following a slow start and Jose Mourinho‘s suspension for referee criticism. The rough season has led one former Blues player to suggest the team should have washed their hands of Mourinho weeks ago.
According to the Metro, former Chelsea midfielder Craig Burley believes that the team would have been better served to have make a move for Klopp and fire Mourinho.
“Klopp was out there, he was going to go to Liverpool and Chelsea should have gone and got him,” Burley said. “That didn’t happen and clearly it wasn’t going to happen but that was my opinion of what they should have done. I would have gone and got him.”
Burley’s criticism of Mourinho went beyond the team’s two-win start to the season; he feels that Mourinho’s behavior is damaging the brand and dragging talented players down with him.
“I was not saying Mourinho should go because of a few bad results. I was basing it on the fact that Chelsea are a global brand and the way Mourinho was acting, behaving and speaking outside of the 90 minutes of football was dragging the club, the players and their image through the mud.
“Managers can get bad results, but Mourinho has to have a look at himself in terms of the way he handles things. It is not everyone else’s fault all the time.”
Burley played midfielder for Chelsea from 1989 to 1997, winning an FA Cup title in the process.
Mourinho led Chelsea to the Premier League title and League Cup last season, but the 2015-16 season got off to a surprisingly rough start. After a 2-2 draw against Swansea City in which he publicly berated and later suspended club doctors, Mourinho’s team would win just two of their next seven matches. With four losses this year, the Blues have already exceeded their loss total from the entire 2014-15 season.
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