Chelsea 's former fitness coach does not believe the club's arduous pre-season tour was to blame for the disastrous defence of their Premier League title.
Exhaustion following last summer's trips to Australia and the USA is among a host of possible explanations put forward for Chelsea's poor start to the season, which cost manager Jose Mourinho his job.
Chelsea's announcement of a three-game tour of the USA this summer has led to concerns among some commentators that they could be repeating the mistakes of the last pre-season.
But Ade Mafe, who spent a decade at Chelsea under managers including Ruud Gullit and Jose Mourinho, does not believe tiredness has played a major role in this year's calamitous campaign.
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The 49-year-old former Olympian, who was at the club from 1996-2006 and now works at The Gym in Hounslow , believes the sudden loss of form had more to do with psychology than fitness.
"I don't think fitness had much, if anything, to do with Chelsea's poor start to the season," he told getwestlondon.
"I can't put my finger on what went wrong.
"I don't know if it was to do with players, coaching methods or coaching personality, but there was obviously something going on behind the scenes.
"I think a lot of it's psychological. They started giving away chances they never normally would and once those cracks appeared other teams made them bigger because they believed they could get a result. The same thing's happened at Old Trafford."
