Chelsea midfielder John Obi Mikel believes the atmosphere in the Blues dressing room has improved after Guss Hiddink replaced Mourinho as the manager of the club. The Portuguese tactician was sacked from the job earlier in December, as the team failed to provide a respectable start to their title-defending season.
The defending champions were languishing in 16th place in the Premier League table when Mourinho was sacked. Former Netherlands manager Guss Hiddink was appointed as the interim manager of the club after his departure. Chelsea have been undefeated in the three matches they have played under Hiddink, with one win and a couple of draws.
Mikel, who started the match against Manchester United on Monday which ended in a 0-0 draw, acknowledged the fact that the environment among the players is better now than before. Although the Nigerian did pay lip service to his former manager Mourinho and called him ‘a fantstic manager and a fantastic guy’, his words about the dressing room atmosphere were far more telling.
“We have moved on and the atmosphere has improved since the change of manager,” Mikel said.
“We just weren’t getting the results, I don’t know what it was.”
“José is a fantastic manager and he will always be a fantastic guy. Sometimes football is a cruel game, you have to move on. He’s come back second time, won the club another trophy. Now the change has been made, we have to move on. Is it the right decision? Who knows? We’ll only see in the future.”
Chelsea’s form baffling
The 28-year-old midfielder said that he can not point out where Chelsea’s title defence went wrong and he is as surprised as everyone else. The Nigerian started just twice in the Premier League under Mourinho this term and cited it as one of the reasons of him being unaware of the problems.
“I’ve been as confused as everyone else,” he said. “It’s difficult when you’re not playing, as you don’t really know what the problems are. I wasn’t playing that much under Mourinho so couldn’t put my finger on what was going wrong. It was a collective thing – the players and the manager were not performing.”
This is Hiddink’s second spell with the London-based club, he was earlier made the interim manager after Luiz Felipe Scolari was ousted from the club in 2009. Although the Dutchman was also in charge of the Russian national team during that time. Mikel, who played under Hiddink in his first spell with the club in 2009, said that the approach of the manager is almost same as it was before and the ex-PSV manager is completely aware of how he should go about the proceedings to take the club out of the difficult situation.
“He [Hiddink] hasn’t changed much yet but he was here before and he knows the place and all the staff. The players are different – only me and John Terry were here before – but he knows what to do. We’re down there in the table for a reason so he can’t come in and perform miracles but we want to get out of there and climb the table. We’ve had three games now without losing so are making the right steps.”
