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Jose Mourinho was sacked as manager of Premier League champions Chelsea on Thursday after a calamitous run of results left the west London club one point above the relegation zone.
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Guus Hiddink is set to take over as Chelsea manager until the end of the season.
The 69-year-old Dutchman is the bookmakers' favourite to take over as interim manager, having done so successfully in 2009 when Chelsea fired Brazilian Luiz Felipe Scolari.
Few could have foreseen Chelsea's decline this season, especially as Mourinho was rewarded for the title with a new four-year contract in August.
The squad is virtually identical to the one that dominated last season's Premier League and won the League Cup.
Yet the defeats have piled up, key players Diego Costa and Eden Hazard have looked distracted, Mourinho has twice fallen foul of the FA and there has been talk of dressing room unrest.
Ahead of this weekend's home clash with Sunderland, Chelsea have managed only 15 points during their worst start to a season since they were relegated from the top flight in 1978-79.
Opposing fans have taunted Mourinho with chants of "You're not special any more" -- a cheeky reference to his opening statement when he first joined the club from Porto in 2004.
"Please do not call me arrogant because what I say is true. I'm European champion, I'm not one out of the bottle, I think I'm a special one," he said at the time.
Mourinho's special relationship with Chelsea began when, fresh from Champions League success at Porto, he won back-to-back Premier League titles plus the League Cup and FA Cup, before falling out with Abramovich and leaving in 2007.
He was welcomed back as a returning hero in 2013 after spells at Inter Milan, where he again won the Champions League, and Real Madrid and delivered a third Premier League title, but this season has been the worst of his career.
Chelsea have lost the same number of league games this term as they did in the three seasons from 2004 to 2007.