Have you heard that Chelsea is in 15th place in the Barclays Premier League? Pretty hilarious. And whose fault is it?

Well, according to Jose Mourinho, it's the New York Red Bulls.

While Mourinho has retained the confidence of the majority of Chelsea’s players, there remain concerns within the dressing room over his perceived draconian methods and harsh treatment of certain individuals, a resentment that has its roots in the manager’s reaction to his side’s first pre-season friendly of last summer, a surprise 4-2 defeat by the New York Red Bulls.

In the immediate aftermath of that match in New Jersey, in July, Mourinho initially ignored his team after watching them concede four second-half goals to a side comprised largely of Red Bulls Academy youngsters, but brought the game up during a team talk several weeks later, in which he turned on his players and accused them of losing to a "Mickey Mouse team". This outburst infuriated several players, as they had moved on from that defeat and did not appreciate being castigated for it long after the event.

The champions of England, brought down by Tyler Adams, Franklin Castellanos, and Sean Davis. What a world.

A few thoughts:

1) The Red Bulls aren't a Mickey Mouse team. That's Orlando City. Duh.

2) It's a friendly, Jose. Occasionally, great teams lose to good teams, good teams lose to bad teams. But that's only occasionally. The norm is that the better team wins, and that's what happened in July.

3) We're moving past the era of "hard" managers. In the future, if you want to win, you need to be a "players first" kind of guy. All of these insane mind games and treating players like cattle, that's not going to work at some point. Nobody's going to want to play for those managers.

4) It was just a friendly, Jose. Holy crap. Nobody cares.