The Portuguese was known for his psychological side of the game and using mind games not only against opposition managers, but his own players as well.
John Terry has now revealed an incident when Mourinho threatened to sell him and also Gary Cahill simply because they misplaced a couple of passes in training.
Asked if Mourinho was more of an arm-round-the-shoulder manager, or someone who dished out regular hairdryer treatments, Terry said in an Instagram Live with snooker legend Stephen Hendry: “Mourinho had a bit of both actually.
“He knew when to push your buttons and when not to. Even small things, you’d be sitting at home and get a text message off him going, ‘Unbelievable today in training you’re my main man, love you captain.’ You’d sit there and go, ‘That’s unbelievable’.
“So a really good relationship, but also I was petrified of him, like probably most players was. You’d go in the next day and you’d get nothing from him at all.
“He’d walk past you, say nothing and blank you. You’d think you’ve upset him. Did I text something back? You look at your messages and think, “No, I’m alright there.” ‘After training he’d go, “That’s why you’re my captain, you just needed that little push.” ‘We won the league and came back pre-season, first day, me and Gary Cahill kept giving the ball away. ‘He stopped the session, we’d just signed Cesc Fabregas, Diego Costa, a couple of others.
“He said, ‘You two, I’ll go and spend £100m on a couple of other centre-backs if you keep giving the ball away.’ We looked at each other and thought, ‘Oh wow’. “So me and Gaz now, first day of pre-season, we’ve gone round started smashing everyone in training. The tempo has gone up, everyone’s kicking lumps out of each other.
“After training he came and put his arm round us both and said, ‘That’s why you’ll be starting this season.’ He just knew exactly what he was doing, he was four steps ahead of everyone else.”