Branislav Ivanovic claims that Chelsea players are extremely lucky that owner Roman Abramovich only sacked manager José Mourinho.

The Portuguese was relieved from his duties after less than three years in charge of the club. Unlike in the last few campaigns, the club tried to resist making a change in the middle of the campaign. After witnessing Chelsea slip into a relegation fight towards the end of 2015, Abramovich had no other option but to change the management. After the arrival of Guus Hiddink, things have been much better at the club.

The blues are 10th in the table and are looking forward to getting into the top of after a long time. Strangely, Ivanovic says that Mourinho’s inability to get results in the 2015-16 campaign cannot be explained since the Portuguese did the not changing anything since the summer. One of the reasons suggested for the poor form has been the slow pre-season preparations. Due to some players being involved in the Coppa America, Mourinho scheduled Chelsea’s pre-season to start a week or two later than their rivals. This had a catastrophic effect on the confidence of the team after they were extremely slow in all of the pre-season friendlies and suffered a defeat against Arsenal in the Community Shield.

"Jose didn’t change. He didn’t change the way he prepared the game. He didn’t change the way he treated us. He didn’t change anything. He was the same.Football is about players. The managers are not on the pitch. It is 11 against 11. You have to be better than your opponent and, at the beginning of the season, we weren’t.The players were more responsible for that situation than the manager. Of course it is difficult in football to change 25 players halfway through the season,” said Ivanovic.