"He's lost the dressing room" is a line you'll hear trotted out any time a struggling manager suffers a bad defeat at their club, but in the case of Carlo Ancelotti's sacking at Bayern Munich, it may very well have been accurate.
After making the decision to axe Ancelotti as manager at around 3.30am in the morning after his club limped to a 3-0 defeat to PSG in the Champions League, Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness has wasted no time in sharing his views with the media.
Rarely shy to let everyone know exactly how he feels, Hoeness expressed his belief that Ancelotti made enemies of influential players in the dressing room, and as such there was no choice but to end his time in charge of the team.
As coach, you can't have your most prominent players as enemies. In my life, I've learned a saying: the enemy in your own bed is the most dangerous. That's why we had to act.
The fact that, in my view, in the past few days the coach turned five important players against him - Coman, too, whom he also didn't let play - at a stroke, he never would have made it.
While he stopped short of naming all of the players, it has not been difficult for Bayern fans to think of who he is referring to and a quick Twitter search of the term 'Hoeness' will present you with a list of candidates.
Ancelotti named Mats Hummels, Arjen Robben, and Franck Ribery on the bench in Paris to the bemusement of many in Germany, and has faced criticism from the likes Thomas Muller and Robert Lewandowski in recent weeks, so all are likely candidates for what the club's president was referring to, along with Kingsley Coman who was mentioned by name.
He also is reported to have not seen eye to eye with Jerome Boateng and Joshua Kimmich, which really suggests that his role as Bayern boss has been on shaky ground for some time.
Ancelotti has faced accusations of simply not caring since early in the season, but it will be interesting to see where he lands next as it is hard to imagine he would struggle to find work considering his track-record, despite the regular second-season slump. Also, the next Bayern boss will know for a fact that player power is very much a thing at Germany's biggest club.
[via BavarianFootballWorks.com]
