Begovic: Results Cost Mourinho  (Sky Sports)

Jose Mourinho lost his job as Chelsea manager due to the club's "unacceptable results" earlier this season, goalkeeper Asmir Begovic told Goals on Sunday.

Mourinho was sacked by Chelsea in December with the champions struggling near the foot of the Premier League table.

The Blues had lost nine of their opening 16 league games, a dreadful run of form that finally resulted in the Portuguese's departure from Stamford Bridge.

"Overall it has been a tough year, but I have enjoyed my time there playing and that is obviously what you want to do," says Begovic, who joined Chelsea from Stoke City last summer. "The run in the team did me lots of good.

"The desire was always there and we tried in all the games, even towards the end of Mourinho's tenure, but sometimes in football things do not always go your way.

"And when negative results start building up, then confidence obviously drops and everything turns against you. But I think the effort and commitment was there from the players. We certainly tried.

"The atmosphere was not a lot of fun. We tried to keep positive and keep each other going. But obviously when you go from one bad result to the next game and it does not start the way you want and a man gets sent off, another questionable decision, then you start feeling that negative feeling again.

"So it was difficult at times, but we had good characters, just unfortunately at a club like ours the results we had were not acceptable. And unfortunately someone pays the price, and that is the way it worked out."

Begovic denies, however, that Mourinho lost the dressing room towards the end of his second spell in charge of Chelsea.

"I do not think so, even towards the last few games we had some good results," he said. "We got a draw at Tottenham and won in the Champions League in the last two group stage games.

"Obviously the loss at Leicester was the final straw and like I said, the results were not acceptable, even draws, we were expected to win every single game and be at the top of the table and it was unfortunate that those sort of things happened."