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Ex-Chelsea midfielder, John Mikel Obi has revealed that the sacking of Jose Mourinho during his first stint at Chelsea was one that hit the players the hardest.

The Roman Abramovich era at Chelsea was one that saw quite a good number of managerial changes due to the high expectations the Russian billionaire placed on his coaches.

Abramovich demanded instant and continuous success from his coaches, and whenever that seemed like it wasn’t forthcoming, he often wielded the big axe to cut them off.

Not even Mourinho, who was very successful during his first managerial stint at Stamford Bridge was spared, as he was relieved of his duties in the 2007-08 campaign.

According to Mikel, the players didn’t receive the news of Mou’s departure well, and were left in tears for a while, although eventually, they had to get over it, and return to the training pitch.

Mikel said on the Obi One podcast: “It’s crazy, we all do all that. We all cried and were emotional and that. He left, then five minutes later we were out on the training pitch and everyone’s laughing and joking.

“We just had to move on with it. After training, we started talking about it, but on the pitch we had to get on with it.”