http://www.thesecretfootballer.com/...asty-as-jose-mourinho-searches-for-answers-2/
Another factor. I was worried for Chelsea when manager Jose Mourinho picked a fight with his medical staff. It may not sound like a big deal, it may not sound like something that would affect players, but you’d be amazed at the bond that forms between players and medical staff. In fact, all the staff. There is a deep respect and friendship between players and the medics that you won’t find between medical staff and coaching staff.
The medical team look after the players. They humour them, massage them, stretch them. They are the first point of contact for most players in the morning when they arrive at the training ground. Players arrive, they get changed, they go to the canteen and then they go to the physio room for their ailments to be seen to and, mostly, for the craic. And in that room, the players get to know their physio. They get to know his banter, his family, his likes and dislikes. He becomes respected and above all, in some cases, a mate.
I wrote in an article at the time: “When players lose confidence in the manager, it is always in the wake of a collection of odd, sometimes desperate, decisions and irrational behaviour for which there is the minimum of justification and which, by extension, makes the players and staff look pathetic and stupid.”
Mourinho’s public condemnation of his physio, Jon Fearn, and doctor, Eva Carneiro, was a mistake by him and cannot be underestimated. I said that it would lead to problems between Mourinho and the players and that has since been borne out.
I couldn’t have imagined that it would contribute to a run of form quite as bad as we’re currently seeing but it is certainly a factor, given that the pair are universally popular among the players.
In the changing-room, they were seen as easy and weak targets for a very powerful manager to hang so publicly, particularly in the wake of an incident in which the pair were, quite literally, just doing their jobs.