Well, that is that then. The patience finally ran out for Roman Abramovich and Jose Mourinho became an ex-Chelsea manager for the second time in his career.
After what has been one of the worst title defences in recent memory, the Chelsea owner decided to pull the trigger and fire the club's most popular manager.
It was coming, of course, but it is still staggering, when you think that Mourinho led Chelsea to the English Premier League title a mere seven months back.
But when you lose the locker room, like Mourinho had clearly done – Abramovich only had one of two solutions. Either sell the players who have an issue with the manager or cut your losses, take that hit that from the compensation/severance package and bid goodbye to the manager.
After a lot of thought, no doubt, Abramovich has clearly gone the let's-cut-our-losses way, with Mourinho left wondering just how it all went so wrong so quickly.
When he looks back, once all the dust has settled, and he has had time to gather his thoughts, though, even Mourinho will know there were mistakes made, and big ones at that.
The siege mentality business always comes with an expiration date – in the end, eventually, it starts to get to you and the players will start to respond even less. And when you have creative, let-me-just-do-my-thing-please players like Eden Hazard, the one-style, you-defend-or-you-go plan will not work in the long-term.
Yet again, the Mourinho third season syndrome has struck. After a couple of years, Mourinho creates more chaos than harmony, and clearly the Portuguese found it next to impossible to find a way out of the rut Chelsea found themselves in.
In Real Madrid, there was open mutiny amongst the players. While it wasn't as bad as that at Chelsea – all the public statement were those supporting the manager -- the fact that at every matchday, the players just failed to show up – and that can be said about the majority of the squad – was as clear a sign as there can be that the players weren't ready to play for their manager anymore.
Mourinho is someone who divides opinion – well, let's be honest, apart from the Chelsea fan base, and parts of the Porto and Inter perhaps, you will not find too many people warming to him – and while nobody can question his undoubted pedigree, this is a failure that the Portuguese will find difficult to get over.
Every time a big club thinks of hiring Mourinho, they will think, but then is it worth all the trouble, that will inevitably spring up in the third season (maybe, even sooner)?
For a short while, with the right resources, there is no better manager out there than Mourinho. But to build a club from nowhere, like a Ferguson or a Wenger, Jose is not the man, clearly.
And Mourinho, probably, will regret that more than everybody else. This was a job that he wanted for years and years, or at least that is what he claimed when he re-joined Chelsea. But after about 30 months, the journey has come to an end, a really abrupt one at that.
