Former Blues star Didier Drogba was left in tears by the news of Jose Mourinho’s departure when the pair were together at Chelsea, according to team-mate Steve Sidwell.

Mourinho had been in charge at Chelsea for three years and won two league titles but no manager is invincible while Roman Abramovich is still at Stamford Bridge.

The Portuguese boss left ‘by mutual consent’ in September 2007 and it rocked the dressing room, particularly star striker Drogba, who had arrived at the club shortly after his manager, report the Metro.

‘I’ve been at a lot of clubs where the manager’s gone,’ Sidwell told Joe.co.uk.

‘The hardest one I had was at Chelsea when Jose left. A lot of the players had been with him for a long time and it was a real family culture.

‘We played Rosenborg in the Champions League. We drew or lost at home and then we got called in the next day. ‘We knew that something wasn’t right and Jose got sacked that day.

‘We were all in the dressing room. The meeting was going on upstairs and it filtered down that Jose was going to go. ‘He came down. I’d only been there a couple of months and he was going round one-by-on saying his goodbyes, there was people crying.

‘Drogba was in absolute pieces, like tears. I think everyone was taken aback by it. ‘He went round to every individual and everyone was sort of broken by it.’

Drogba spent another five years at Chelsea after Mourinho’s departure, amassing 157 goals in 341 appearances, before leaving for China.