Former Chelsea number 9 Steve Sidwell has revealed the state of the Blues dressing room when Jose Mouirnho was dismissed for the first time.
We may not remember a great deal from Sidwell’s forgettable stint as a Blue, but the man himself appears to have prominent memories which he wishes to share.
One of them is from Mourinho’s initial sacking from Chelsea back in 2007, with Sidwell offering insight into just how devastated the dressing room was to hear the news.
Sidwell is quoted by Eurosport saying:
“A lot of the players had been with him for a long time and it was a real family culture. We played Rosenborg in the Champions League. We drew or lost at home and then we got called in the next day. We knew that something wasn’t right and Jose got sacked that day. We were all in the dressing room. The meeting was going on upstairs and it filtered down that Jose was going to go. He came down. I’d only been there a couple of months and he was going round one-by-on saying his goodbyes, there was people crying. Drogba was in absolute pieces, like tears. I think everyone was taken aback by it. He went round to every individual and everyone was sort of broken by it.”
Poor Didier, losing the man who brought him to England and showed so much faith in him when the whole country was doubting whether he was cut out for it.
Little did he know that seven years down the line the pair would be reunited and were to lift the Premier League title together, just like old times.
Sidwell wasn’t so fortunate to be involved…
