When will there be an end to player power at Chelsea?

At the height of his managerial powers, Jose Mourinho was more than a boss to his players. There was, and still is, so much that justified his self-proclaimed ‘Special’ nickname.

His greatest career achievement has not been one particular moment, but rather a string of them that have all come from his remarkable ability to make his players trust in his every word and go above and beyond for him.

The best example of this came at Inter, in 2009/10, when at arguably the lowest point in Serie A’s recent history, he built a side that was more than the sum of its parts in every sense, one that went on to win the first ever treble in Italian football.

Nobody was shocked, though, because he had previously conquered Europe with a young, impressionable FC Porto side before becoming the biggest threat to Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United’s Premier League monopoly, at Chelsea, both with very much the same mentality.

More recently, at Real Madrid, Chelsea again and now the Red Devils, Mourinho has been shown to be much more human without an army of loyal followers by his side. Fights, arguments and disharmony have led to more public criticism of his players, something he never did in the early days.

Although there have been pockets of success by his incredibly high standards along the way, there is a real feeling that Mourinho is just not the same as he once was.

Jose Mourinho's 'untouchables'

Jose Mourinho had assembled an incredible team

His second spell at Chelsea rather ironically ended as one of the worst cases of an issue with player power that he set in motion. It was December 2006, six months after he had won his second league title with the Blues, when Mourinho took the unusual step of naming nine players he deemed ‘untouchable’.

John Terry, Frank Lampard, Ashley Cole, Petr Cech, Claude Makelele, Michael Essien, Michael Ballack, Ricardo Carvalho and Didier Drogba would play whenever they were fit.

Perhaps owner Roman Abramovich took note, because ever since, there has been an unhealthy climate at the club. Mourinho was definitely within his rights to build the team around those players, but to do so publicly sent a message that suggested their power was so great they weren’t to be messed with.

The Portuguese coach left the following September, and though the club has continued to win trophies since, any failure from a managers’ point of view has been given the ultimate sanction.

Players > Managers?

Even Carlo Ancelotti was showed the door

Some cases of managerial changes have been coincidental; John Terry spoke of his love for Carlo Ancelotti when he was ruthlessly sacked after finishing second in 2011, a year after winning the domestic double in his first season, and Roberto Di Matteo never saw the players desert him after he led them to an unprecedented Champions League success.

But the majority of the Mourinho ‘untouchables’ stayed around long enough to reportedly have a say on other reigns; Luiz Felipe Scolari, who lasted just nine months of the 2008/09 campaign, and Andre Villas-Boas, Di Matteo’s predecessor, never truly had the support of their playing staff.

By the time Mourinho returned to the club in 2013, things had changed. Only Cech, Cole, Lampard and Terry remained from his list of untouchables, with three of them leaving under his watch and the latter becoming much less involved in the first team picture.

Scarred by a torrid end to his career in Madrid, Mourinho did not adopt the same ‘family’ approach to man-management, often cutting the miserable, agitated figure he still does today. Winning another Premier League crown in 2015 was enough to suggest Mourinho’s return to Stamford Bridge was always going to be as romantic as first thought.

But as the likes of Diego Costa and Eden Hazard replaced Lampard and Drogba as the team’s linchpins, it became clear that the player-power that had engulfed the Abramovich era since Mourinho’s first spell was still alive and kicking.

Seemingly disillusioned with their manager a year later, their performances, along with their teammates’, dropped alarmingly and Mourinho was given the chop with the Blues hovering just above the relegation zone.

Antonio Conte to soon follow?

Antonio Conte could very likely be sacked by the end of the season

Looking back now, even current boss Antonio Conte’s reign may end up being a false dawn. Mourinho was so well loved by everyone at Chelsea the first time around that his metaphorical ghost haunted the dugout before he returned.

Conte’s orchestrations of the Chelsea fans’ chanting in a 4-0 win over his current side, Manchester United, last season on the way to winning another title seemed to suggest everybody danced to his beat, finally putting a stop to the tiresome and harmful voices of some of the players.

As Chelsea and Conte head into a must-win Champions League last-16 tie agaist Barcelona on Tuesday, the same issues are again rearing their ugly head. The Blues’ title defence is in tatters and only their European commitments and the FA Cup stand between them and the humiliation of failing to win a trophy this season.

Conte’s frustration with his players is clear; after successfully seeing the back of Diego Costa following a well-publicized rocky relationship, he appears to have lost a lot of faith in David Luiz.

The harmony is off once again, but with Conte said to be almost certainly leaving in the summer, it appears Abramovich will once again pass up the opportunity to get to the heart of the biggest issue plaguing his club for years.

Player power can be both, a positive and a negative, and that has been true in Chelsea’s case. Their greatest night, the Champions League final win over Bayern Munich, came courtesy of Jose Mourinho’s old core rallying together for one final hurrah.

Roman Abramovich will say his reign has yielded trophies, but the constant backing of players over managers is not healthy. It will catch up with him if he doesn’t change his mindset, but that happening seems extremely unlikely.