• Premier League

Mikel: Mourinho's fear factor spurs Chelsea on

Chelsea midfielder John Obi Mikel has revealed Jose Mourinho installs fear into the dressing room in order to get the best out of the club's star players.

With the likes of £30 million Willian and £32m Eden Hazard in Mourinho's squad, Mikel admitted some of the newer, star attractions have not fully understood the Chelsea ethos.

However, the Nigerian reiterated that his manager does not expect anything less than the best and that players are starting to realise the pressures of playing for Chelsea.

"He [Mourinho] always wants us to play in a certain way and give 110%. If you don't, you're out," Mikel told the Sun. "As a player, that's what you want.

"You don't want to slack, you don't want to sit down and think, 'You're the best, I don't want to defend or I don't want to run'. If you don't do those things, you don't play.

"That's the mentality he wants instilled in this team - and slowly but surely the likes of Eden [Hazard], Oscar and Willian are beginning to do that. It's a matter of letting them know what it means when you come to the end of the season.

"What the Premier League and Champions League means to this club. If you don't play for Chelsea, you don't know what these trophies mean to us. It's not a team where if you come second, third or fourth, it doesn't matter. No - every year you have to win something and this is the pressure.

"Now they're here, they have to feel the pressure and they are feeling it right now. That's why we just want to keep doing well and now they're starting to understand that we don't want to get beaten.

"It was always going to be difficult to make the new players understand the way he wants the team to play. But I think they're now getting the message. Hopefully, come the end of the season, they will start to show the winning mentality even more that the manager is trying to instil into them and we'll go on from there and win trophies."

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