Kurt Zouma has offered his backing to under pressure Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho, saying the Portuguese coach rarely gets an opposition lineup wrong and often predicts how his own team could concede a goal.
The defending Premier League champions have had a disastrous start to the season, picking up just eight points from eight league games to sit fifth from bottom in the table.
French defender Zouma, 20, has featured in seven of those games, usually in place of club captain John Terry.
Mourinho, who received the "full support" of the club earlier this week, said after their latest defeat against Southampton that he would resign if he did not have the backing of his players.
Zouma is one player that still has faith in the former Real Madrid manager. He told Le Parisien that Mourinho is a different character when he is not watching a game, saying he does not rant and rave at his players behind closed doors.
"That's when he's on the sidelines but he never tears strips off us," Zouma said. "It wouldn't be any use -- we're already at rock bottom [after a defeat].
"And then he's incredibly intelligent -- he knows everything. I've never seen him get an opposing team wrong. I don't know how he does it.
"Every goal we concede, he'll have shown it to us before on video. Then he'll he say to us: 'I warned you, lads.' He leaves nothing to chance -- it's really the best. But sometimes in football there are times when everything goes wrong."
The former St Etienne defender also said Chelsea's current run of form has been extremely hard for the players to digest.
"After defeats, there's a strange atmosphere in the dressing room," he said. "There's complete silence -- no one opens their mouth. Mourinho has taught us to hate defeat. We're steeped in that culture so it's hard for us."