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Chelsea legend John Obi Mikel has revealed how Chelsea players knew former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich was about to sack a manager.
During his 19 years as Chelsea owner, Abramovich sacked 13 managers and Obi Mikel has now revealed how the players knew the Chelsea manager was about to get sacked.
According to Obi Mikel, Abramovich would fly into the training ground at Cobham in his helicopter and that would signal to players that a change of manager was coming.
Obi Mikel told talkSPORT: “Amazing owner and football man as well. A lot of people thought he was going to be this owner who just threw money at the club and wasn’t involved in the day-to-day activities.
“He wasn’t at the club every day, but boy, he knew what was going on every day.
“Every game he was always coming into the dressing room, some games he comes, especially the big games like the Champions League games, he always comes after the game.
“Whether we win or lose he was always there. He would just say, ‘Sorry I know you guys did your best, but next time we have to win.’
“He always wanted to win games. For him, it was about winning games, great owner.
“The only thing with him is that when you see the helicopters flying around the training ground, you know that the manager is going to be sacked, so that’s how we knew.
“I was there for almost 11 years, we had our downsides when we weren’t performing well and then the managers got sacked.
“But we always knew when it was going to happen, once we see Roman’s helicopter arriving at the training ground in the morning, we knew the manager was getting fired.”
Obi Mikel made 372 Chelsea appearances in all competitions before leaving in 2017.