Jose Mourinho's career at Chelsea is at an end.

The Portuguese coach was removed from the club after a frustrating start to the 2015-16 season that saw Chelsea sitting just one point out of a relegation spot. According to ESPN, the coach had lost the support in the locker room and was ultimately removed to get the team back on track ahead of the New Year.

Chelsea won the Premier League title a year ago and was expected to be in the running this season as well. However, the disastrous start to the season has all but eliminated the team from doing that at all.

But the reality is that the demanding coach simply drove his players into the ground and lost their undying loyalty.

"He's not someone who's there to give confidence to the players -- he's there to get what he can out of them," former Chelsea player Demba Ba said, according to ESPN.

"And if a player lacks confidence, it's not him who'll give it back to them. He's going to rely on someone else who is confident. If you don't have confidence all he's going to do is to put you on the bench."

And so it was that the coach could find no way of getting his troops reorganized mentally, instead showing increasing signs of frustration in the media.

Mourinho and controversy is not a surprise, especially with Chelsea. His conflicts with owner Roman Abramovich. In 2007-08, the manager left in late September, a rather shocking move at the time as he had a solid run with the club prior to that.

In 2012-13, he lost the Real Madrid locker room, starting conflicts with a number of players including Iker Casillas, Sergio Ramos, Pepe and even Cristiano Ronaldo. After going without a trophy that year, the coach was fired from Spain's capital where he got another chance to lead Chelsea to higher glory.

For all of his controversy, Mourinho is a proven winner, picking up eight domestic league titles across four different clubs and winning the Champions League with Inter Milan and Porto.