Chelsea 3-1 Sunderland: Life after Mourinho starts well on unusual day

With doubts over Diego Costa’s long-term future at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea are also reportedly considering moves for two striker.

The club has appointed former Netherlands manager Guus Hiddink as the interim manager till the end of the season.

A powerful header from Branislav Ivanovic followed by a close-range effort from Pedro but the Blues 2-0 up within 13 minutes against a Sunderland side all at sea at the back.

“They are used to setbacks in recent weeks so we wobbled a bit in the second half”.

“But step-by-step, there’s a lot of games over Christmas, if we can go on a good run and climb the table over Christmas, then who knows”.

The 69-year-old Hiddink’s latest firefighting role comes with Chelsea only four points above the Premier League relegation zone following an alarming slump just seven months after sweeping to the title.

We, the players feel responsible for that.

“I think we let them turn on the style in many ways”, said Allardyce, blaming his men for defeat and not Mourinho’s midweek sacking.

‘The manager is not on the pitch, it is the players, so we lose the games and the thing we can change in the future is ourselves.

“But I’m sure [the fans will] support us and well come through it. They are disappointed and so are we”.

“You can see the quality is there”, Courtois was quoted as saying by Chelsea’s official website on Monday. Many believe that these players have particularly under-performed this campaign and with the rumours of player power been a factor in the departure of Mourinho the fans showed no mercy.

“It was a very important three points because our league position is very poor and if we’d have lost today we would have gone into the bottom three”, said Holland.

One player with plenty to prove is Falcao, who has scored just one goal in 11 matches to date and who has missed the last six league games with a muscle injury.