Sir Alex Ferguson thinks Roman Abramovich has learned from his trigger-happy days and will stick with Jose Mourinho at Chelsea.
The defending champions are just two points above the relegation zone after a shock defeat to Bournemouth made it eight league losses for the Blues already this season.
It is not the sort of form the usually ruthless Russian owner expects from his team and the spotlight has come back on Mourinho after the Cherries setback.
Abramovich took the unprecedented step of publicly backing the beleaguered boss in October but there has been no improvement in results since that show of faith.
Mourinho’s former club Porto could pile yet more pressure on the Chelsea manager by knocking the west Londoners out of the Champions League on Wednesday night.
However, former Manchester United manager Ferguson believes it would be a mistake for Abramovich to give the Special One the boot for a second time.
Speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt conference in London, Ferguson said: “He (Abramovich) has sacked so many coaches in the last 10 years that I am sure he has learned by it. He has to trust and have confidence Jose can turn around.
Chelsea's shock loss to Bournemouth in pictures:
“There is no point in sacking one of the best coaches of all time, he’s won the European Cup twice, he’s won the league in each country he’s managed in, he’s won the big trophies. It would be foolish to take that step to sack him. That would be bad management. It’s not leadership, that.
“I’ve been watching Jose and I’ve spoken to him a couple of times. It’s the first time he’s been confronted with non-success.
"If you look at his whole career it’s been nothing but a rise all the time, so for the first time in his life he’s had to deal with bad publicity, adversity, and that's a challenge but there are signs he is getting back to a balanced level even though they lost on Saturday.
“For Jose, all good leaders will eventually find a solution. He will find a solution and I think he will get back to normal. It’s not looking great at the moment, but I know the guy and work he has done in football and I can’t see it lasting long.”
Thibaut Courtois looked assured between the sticks against Bournemouth in his first Chelsea start since August following knee surgery.
John Terry remained sidelined through injury and Ferguson thinks the loss of those two at various stages throughout the campaign has been understated by some.
He added: “Things that have been overlooked was Courtois being injured, that was a big loss. John Terry at the beginning of the season was not having a great time and that is a loss because he is a leader in the team.
“When you lose two really influential players like, that can make a difference.
"What United were best at was having the consistency. Winning the League didn't matter, it was the next year that mattered.
"There are not many teams who can continue that, for instance City won the League and then lost it the next year, Chelsea won the league and are now having a bad spell.
"It is very difficult to maintain and continue success for five, six, seven years, very, very difficult.
“The key is to avoid complacency. If we won the League, my first step next season was to remind them about many things, about expectation and responsibility, that complacency is a disease.
"All these things mattered to me because I was always fearful of dropping back off the scale.
“Fortunately we had a reasonable consistency, but the most important thing about United for me was every time we lost the League, we won it the next year.
"So there was a response The character in the team, that was really important.
"Developing character in a football team is just as important as developing the ability of the team and the character in that football team was very, very strong. Very strong characters and that was really important.”
