Could this be the REAL reason Chelsea's season fell apart?

There is one question that remains unanswered at Chelsea this season and that is the real reason for our dramatic decline from being crowned Premier League Champions last season. Everyone has said they cannot explain it or cannot understand it up to this point.

Speaking this week about his intention to remain in London and that he will back in management when the right opportunity comes along, Jose Mourinho was asked of the beginning of the season and revealed what I believe to be the answer we have all been looking for.

He said:

“If you are in a club that wins, if you want to win again you have to create instability in the winners.

You have to make them doubt, you have to buy new players, you have to make them feel not in their comfort zone.

There is a normal tendency to go to your comfort zone. If you don’t react, if you believe that just because you won in one year that you are going to win again, it’s very difficult.”

I know people will have a different opinion on this than I do but for me the answer is right there. I understand that part of the process each summer is to sell players, bring new ones in to freshen things up, to keep people on their toes and to improve the options you would then have available compared to what you have had previously.

However, I have to question the decision he made to create instability in the players and to replace the feeling they had of being Champions to questioning themselves as players and as a team.

We MUST remember that for many of the players this was their FIRST ever Premier League trophy and they were not with us throughout the most successful period of our history over the last decade. Yes, the likes of John Terry, Petr Cech, Didier Drogba, Mikel, Ivanovic and Nemanja Matic had experienced that before but out of twenty three players, seventeen of them had not.

It's no wonder the players suffered a loss of confidence in themselves and as a result a drastic loss of form. We had been a team that were resolute and almost machine like for the second half of last season knowing that we would grind out a win and concede little. We turned into a quivering wreck who would concede goals left right and centre who left themselves open. It became a nightmare.

How must players such as Cesc Fabregas, Willian, Oscar, Eden Hazard, Courtois and Diego Costa have felt coming back into pre-season training buzzing after a summer celebrating to walk into that environment? Confused, surprised, frustrated and hard to believe? We should have been singing their praises, feeding their confidence to build them up to be almost unstoppable for that first game against Swansea.

It's no surprise that now with the managerial change and Guus Hiddink taking a different approach that the players have responded. I know before you think it that most of the games have been draws but we remain unbeaten and the players have responded.

I keep saying it over and over again but this game now is as much about man management as it is about being tactically aware. You MUST manage your players to get the best out of them because as soon as you stop doing that, you begin to lose the dressing room.

It's unbelievable to me it really is. We have been looking for answers and Jose has given is exactly what we needed to hear but I remain as surprised as anyone. For someone who for the most part gets it right time and time again, Jose Mourinho got is drastically wrong and it cost him his job.

Unfortunately for us, it could cost Chelsea for years to come now too!