Chelsea boss faces flak over doctor row

Mourinho’s behaviour towards the Gibraltar-born Carneiro was “absolutely appalling”, Liverpool’s former head of sports science Peter Brukner told Talksport radio on Wednesday.

The former fitness guru has slammed the Portuguese manager, who was highly critical of Carneiro after the game, and has expressed his belief that Mourinho owes his entire medical staff an apology. The Chelsea manager spoke after the match that it was naive and unprofessional of the Blues doctor to take Hazard off the pitch when they were already one man short.

Brukner, who was appointed at Anfield in 2010 by Christian Purslow and left in April 2012 as an early casualty of the shake-up by new owners Fenway Sports Group, is now the Australia cricket team doctor.

Sammy Margo, the first female physiotherapist to work in football in England, said she was not sure the manager’s reaction would have been as severe had the doctor not been a woman. Under existing guidelines, a player can request treatment, or the referee can decide to call for it if he believes the player needs it. Referee Michael Oliver signalled for the doctors to come on as Hazard remained down, which would seem to make it an open-and-shut case – the doctors did everything right.

“It is also of great concern that at a time when the both the Premier League and the Premier League Doctors group are intensifying efforts to safeguard player welfare, the precedent set by this incident demonstrates that the medical care of players appears to be secondary to the result of the game”. They weren’t just ‘oh you ran on the pitch, you made a mistake.’ To be honest with you, you do have to understand the game.

Rogers quit his role at Chelsea FC in 2011 after the appointment of Paco Biosca as the Chelsea FC medical director, having played a key role in the backroom staff under managers Carlo Ancelotti and Andre Villas-Boas.

Carneiro will continue at Cobham, but many questions will come into mind regarding what her future is at the club, especially to the surprise of the players, who thought she did nothing wrong.

“Our first priority as doctors and physio is the health and safety of the individual player and that’s what they were attending to”. “They were doing their job and they’ve been criticised very publicly”.

The body pledged that Carneiro, who joined Chelsea in 2009, had its “universal and total support”.

Hazard went down injured late on, prompting Carneiro and Fearn to enter the pitch and treat him. On Monday she posted on Facebook: ‘I would like to thank the general public for their overwhelming support. ‘Really very much appreciated’.

When approached by Press Association Sport on the issue, a club spokesman said: “We do not comment on internal staffing matters”.