Criticism is being frequently thrown at the Chelsea owners at the moment, and John Obi Mikel believes they have made a mistake this season they would already admit was wrong.
The Blues currently sit outside of the top five in the Premier League who are expected to qualify for the Champions League, with Liam Rosenior under pressure from Chelsea fans.
Mikel has already cast doubt over Rosenior and his ability to lead the team, although he has been thrown into a tough situation following Enzo Maresca’s exit from the club.
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John Obi Mikel says Chelsea owners know they made a mistake by sacking Enzo Maresca
Chelsea have been keen to internally blame Maresca for their current struggles, although Mikel told the ‘Obi One Podcast‘ that he believes Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali will regret the decision to part ways on New Year’s Day.
He said: “First of all, when the decision to get rid of Enzo Maresca, I said it here first, that it was a big, big mistake from the football club to make that decision, from the owners, from the sporting directors to make that decision. Getting rid of a manager that I think, that I saw us progressing. You know, there was some sort of, you know, us moving in the right direction, the way we played, the philosophy in which we play football and approach game as well, especially the big games, you know, where I thought we always competed against the big teams.
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“And then when the whole thing, the decision, get rid of Enzo Maresca happened, I came on here and I said it, it’s a huge, huge mistake. You can’t get rid of a manager that’s won us two titles. One has the Club World Cup and of course the Conference League.
“I said it was a wrong ground decision to get rid of him. Some of the Chelsea fans were like, no, no, no, no. I think it’s time for him to go. He doesn’t, his substitutions were not good, blah, blah, blah.
“I said, we have to stick with him. And the truth has come out that sometimes when he made the decisions because his hands were tied, there’s people sitting on top of the stands there saying, oh, you need to get rid of, you need to bring Cole Palmer out, you need to make changes, you need to do this, do that. So we didn’t know the full story.
“But then when he got sacked, some of the stories came out. And now it’s a huge, huge mistake. And the club will look back at it and think, we’ve actually, we’ve f—– up here. It was a huge, huge mistake.”
Mikel has also stated that he thinks Chelsea could actually win the Premier League with Maresca in charge. They currently sit 22 points behind league leaders Arsenal.
Chelsea fans want Rosenior gone
Despite being in the Chelsea job for less than three months, Chelsea fans are already calling for Rosenior to be replaced.
We asked Chelsea fans on TalkingPoints to vote for who they want to be in the dugout for the first game of next season, with Rosenior eliminated in the quarter-finals.
FINAL: Who do YOU think should be Chelsea manager next season?
Cesc Fabregas won the vote, but you can still have your say by signing up to TalkingPoints here!
No decision is set to be made on the boss before the end of the season, and he can certainly turn opinions around with some big results and qualification to the Champions League again.
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