Jose Mourinho reveals he'd be 'in jail' for old management style in eye-opening chat

Jose Mourinho joked to one of his former players that he would be in jail if he treated today's players the way he did his Chelsea squad.

The Portuguese maestro continues to make headlines, whether it's for challenging football authorities or criticising officials, currently ruling Fenerbahce with an iron fist at 62. However, his approach to managing players has seen quite the change since he first made waves with Chelsea in the Premier League in 2004.

While Roman Abramovich's wealth undoubtedly played a significant role in Mourinho's success at Stamford Bridge, but his occasionally harsh management style also transformed the Blues into a formidable force in the mid-2000s, before his initial tenure ended in 2007. By his own admission, Mourinho has had to mellow over the years.

John Obi-Mikel, who played under Mourinho during both stints at Chelsea from 2006 to 2017, looks back fondly on his time with the manager. The pair remain friends, but the Nigerian midfielder conceded that Mourinho's tough love wasn't for everyone.

During an appearance on Gary Lineker's The Rest is Football podcast, Mikel said: "If you can't deal with that, you're in trouble. He came on my podcast. He said to me, 'Mikel, if I dealt with the players today how I dealt with you guys, I would be in jail right now," reports the Mirror.

As Lineker chuckled, Mikel continued: "It's true! The players today can't handle that. They'd be on their phone to their parents, their agents. Before you know it, they want to hook the players out of the club."

Mikel also reminisced about a typical dressing room talking to after a subpar first-half display. He said: "He gave it to us. If you're walking to the dressing room at half-time, you're losing the game, you know.

"You walk in, everyone sits down. Everyone is thinking, 'Who's going to get a b*********?' He walks in, we're all shivering, we've taken off our shirts and put a towel on, trying to keep warm. He's in the toilet, he takes his time, everyone is waiting, two minutes, three minutes, you don't see him.

"The whole place is silent. He walks in, his fly is down, his belt and everything is open. Then he stands in front of us and this is when he starts doing his fly [up]. He doesn't say anything, then he starts to do his [tie].

"And you're thinking, 'F****** hell, who is going to get it?' Then he kicks off, [saying] "You mother f******, where the hell did you guys sleep last night.' He goes into everybody."

One specific rant saw Mourinho take aim at the typically dependable Claude Makelele. Mikel added: "I remember he went into Makelele one time. We were losing 1-0. He said, 'Claude, what are you doing? Claude Makelele, in case you haven't realised, we're in black, Wigan are wearing blue. Pass the ball to the guys who are wearing black.'

"Claude was like that [folds his arms looking unhappy] because Claude never got it because he was a senior player, but Jose lost it that day. And he said to Michael Ballack, 'Don't you come to my country to buy a house. Buy a house somewhere else!' What has that got to do with the game but that was just Jose."

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