Chelsea have released a whopping 13 first-team players to what has been dubbed their ‘super team’.
Raheem Sterling and Ben Chilwell are among the casualties at Stamford Bridge, but they are not the only stars to have been brutally ostracised by their manager.
Three players tell Mail Sport what it feels like to be left out.
JAY BOTHROYD
I had a big bond with Mick McCarthy, everybody knows that. He didn’t like the way I was. I didn’t like the way he was. I have a strong personality. He has a strong personality. I didn’t want to give in. He didn’t want to give in. Eventually he started treating me very badly. He made me train alone, he took my shirt number, he made me change in the children’s locker room.
I was in my mid-twenties and I was getting dressed with 16-year-olds who I had never met before. I trained in the afternoons. All I had to do was be on the training ground, run around the pitch and have a few shots at goal. There was no keeper, nothing. It was just me and (fitness coach) Tony Daley running around the pitch in the afternoons. My saviour was an ex-player called Gary Green. We used to go together because we lived close by. He said, ‘Listen, you’re not going to play for this club anymore, but you need to train your mind now to get fit for where you’re going next. Turn up every day, smile, do your training. It’s not going to be nice, but you need to build that mental toughness and when you get to your next team you can flourish.’
Chelsea star Raheem Sterling is among those banished to the ‘bomb squad’
Jay Bothroyd spoke about the time he was sidelined at Wolves under Mick McCarthy
We didn’t speak for a long time and I don’t think I ever told him, but he really helped me because that’s what happened. It was so hard. I love football. The fact that I couldn’t play with my team-mates, score goals every day, banter with the keeper, all that stuff, it really hurt me and damaged me. I never made it up to Mick. I haven’t seen him since and to be honest I’m not sure I want to. I don’t have time for him. He tried to ruin my career and I will never forgive him for that. Managers can get away with a lot because what they say in press conferences is often taken as gospel. I had to think, ‘No, I’m going to prove you wrong’. That’s exactly what I did. I left Wolves in 2008 and two years later I was playing for England.
DANNY MURPHY
It happened to me twice, at Charlton and Blackburn. At Charlton it came out of the blue. I had heard that Alan Curbishley had done a deal to sell me to Newcastle. I went to see him to discuss it and he denied it. I knew it wasn’t right. I was left out of the team that weekend and forced to train with the youngsters. He claimed I wasn’t in the right frame of mind but he had no way of knowing.
The hardest part was getting through the anger. If you get frustrated and decide to go for a beer, you’re the only one who suffers. But staying disciplined to stay in the zone is hard. Mark Robson, who’s now a manager at West Ham, was great with me. He motivated me. Kept me going. Just before the transfer window closed, Kerbs put me back in the squad for a game against Chelsea, but left me as the only player who wasn’t in the team or on the bench. I was the best player, but it was probably to show me who was boss. That was the last straw. I left the stadium and jumped into a black cab outside Stamford Bridge.
Danny Murphy says Alan Curbishley’s decision to sell him to Charlton came out of the blue
In hindsight I should have stayed, but the next day I got a call about a move to Tottenham, which I was really excited about. When you’re training with the kids, you’re not just missing games, you’re missing intense training with players at your level. You don’t have a game to work towards at the end of the week to focus your mind. So when I signed for Spurs, I had lost a bit of my edge. I spent six weeks trying to get back to it.
At Blackburn I was nearing the end of my career and was our fifth manager of the season with Michael Appleton. We were struggling and he left me out and took the captain’s armband off me. That was fair enough, he had to be seen as doing something else. But then I turned up to training and Gary Bowyer took me aside to say I was training with the kids. That was a surprise. I thought I had taken the news from Appy well. The irony of that situation is that two months later he was relieved of his duties and I was back with the lads.
I’ve done media with Kerbs since then and I’ve got a lot of respect for him and Appy. I didn’t do that at the time but looking back, particularly at Charlton, I had a great time. One of the hardest parts is all the people who care about you outside of football – your friends and family – asking what’s going on and are you OK. Sometimes people think you’ve done something wrong and they’re looking for something deeper. You have the occasional sleepless night thinking about what to do. Should I go to the manager? Should I go to the press?
Murphy was also sidelined in the latter stages of his career at Blackburn Rovers
STEPHEN WARNOCK
Gerard Houllier had told me at Aston Villa, ‘When you play in the North West, you can go straight home after the game. You don’t have to ask me.’ We were playing away against Manchester City. I went home, came to training on the Monday and there were seven or eight of us who had gone home without asking him. He pulled us into a group and said, ‘You all have to apologise.’ He said to Emile Heskey and Brad Friedel, ‘You two can go because I said you could travel back to the North West.’ I guess he just didn’t see me. Then he said, ‘You have to apologise.’ I said, ‘What for? You told me, Emile and Brad, that we didn’t have to ask you.’ He told me to go and train.
When I came in the next day, the kitman said, ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I’ve been told to tell you that you’re in the reserves’. I didn’t understand. There was no communication at all. I sat out that season. I came back under Alex McLeish. That season Stiliyan Petrov was diagnosed with cancer and I became captain. I was on the phone to the owner, Randy Lerner, all the time. I took it upon myself to do as much as I could.
Stephen Warnock had a falling out with Gerard Houllier during his time at Aston Villa
Houllier sent Warnock to the reserves before Alex McLeish replaced the France manager
We stayed up and the owner told me how much he owed me, how much he wanted to reward me and there was a new contract on the table. He brought in Paul Lambert and I got a phone call about two weeks later. I’ll never forget it. I was on a cruise. A phone call from my agent basically saying Villa wanted me out. What? I’d just been offered a new contract. It was bizarre.
I thought I would go back in pre-season, prove myself and show what I can do. I went back the fittest and strongest I had ever been. I thought, ‘I’ve done well here, I’ve won him over’. The last game of pre-season we played Nottingham Forest away. I didn’t have a great game, I came in the next day and he dragged me into his office. ‘That’s the end of you. You’re in the reserves now.’ I thought, ‘Why did you take me in pre-season?’. He said, ‘We needed numbers’. I thought, ‘Are you really fucking around?’. I had a couple of weeks to find a new club. Nothing came between them.
Because it happened to me before with Houllier, my worry was that I would get a reputation that I didn’t deserve. I could be a pain in the a***, but that’s because I had such high standards. I would get frustrated when people would drop out and then play at the weekend. I would get completely exhausted. Twice at Villa, I was in the reserves and I thought, ‘My God, how can this happen?’ Suddenly you can be in no man’s land through no fault of your own. It’s the worst feeling. It makes you feel unwanted, like you’re not a good player.