Mikel Obi reveals how Abramovich sacked 13 managers in 19 years

 Former Super Eagles captain and Chelsea star Jon Obi Mikel has revealed that Chelsea players would know when Roman Abramovich would be about to sack a manager.

The former Blues owner took charge of the club after completing his takeover in 2003.

Abramovich helped turn Chelsea into one of the biggest teams in Europe and guided them to a heap of trophies.

The Russian was also known for his readiness to sack managers, having axed 13 of them in his 19 years in charge of the club.

Obi Mikel, 36, joined the club in 2006 and saw his fair share of managers come and go.

He has admitted that he and the other players in the squad knew when the time had come to see another manager get the boot.

The retired midfielder revealed that Abramovich would fly into the training ground at Cobham in his helicopter and that would signal to players that a change of manager was coming.

He told talkSPORT: "Amazing owner and football man as well. A lot of people thought he was going to be this owner who just threw money at the club and wasn't involved in the day-to-day activities.

"He wasn't at the club every day, but boy, he knew what was going on every day.

"Every game he was always coming into the dressing room, some games he comes, especially the big games like the Champions League games, he always comes after the game.

"Whether we win or lose he was always there. He would just say, ‘Sorry I know you guys did your best, but next time we have to win.'

"He always wanted to win games. For him, it was about winning games, a great owner.

"The only thing with him is that when you see the helicopters flying around the training ground, you know that the manager is going to be sacked, so that's how we knew.

"I was there for almost 11 years, we had our downsides when we weren't performing well and then the managers got sacked.

"But we always knew when it was going to happen, once we saw Roman's helicopter arriving at the training ground in the morning, we knew the manager was getting fired."

Obi Mikel made 372 Chelsea appearances in all competitions before leaving in 2017.

He also revealed that Abramovich offered to "send people" to help his dad who had been kidnapped for a second time in 2018.