Playing Chelsea can seriously damage your employment status - at least it can if you are an opposition manager in the Champions League.

The 4-0 defeat of Atletico Madrid last Wednesday wasn't the only reason why the Rojiblancos dismissed Abel Resino two days later, but it was the final straw - and Old Blues eyes has noticed how often the Blues have been, if not that last piece of dried grass that broke the camel's back, certainly in the final handful.

2007/08, the season the players made the Champions League Final, is the remarkable year in terms of managerial turnover.

Only Fergie and Benitez from the seven teams we faced in the march on Moscow were still in their jobs by the end of the season. In addition, both Jose Mourinho and Avram Grant departed Chelsea having led us in Europe that campaign.

Among our group stage opponents, Quique Sanchez Flores (more on him later) was the first to be fired. He went just over three weeks after Joe Cole and Didier Drogba had sunk Valencia in the Mestalla.

Ronald Koeman was Los Che boss by the time they drew 0-0 in a meaningless (for Chelsea) re-match at the Bridge in December - and you guessed it, the Dutchman was out of a job by April.

Also in Group B that season were Rosenborg and Schalke. Drawing against Chelsea at the Bridge and beating Valencia twice was not enough to prevent Knut Torum resigning from the Norwegian club midway through their fixtures.

Mirko Slomka, the Schalke coach survived the group stage, and even beat Porto in the knockouts before falling to Barcelona, but domestic strife meant he didn't survive April.

In Chelsea's knockout stage, we made our way past Olympiacos and Fenerbahçe before the all-Premier League semi against Liverpool and final v Man United.

Olympiacos unsurprisingly dumped Pantagiotis Lemonis days after a limp 3-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge.

The legendary Zico took Fenerbahçe further than they had ever been before in the Champions League, but resigned in the summer.

It wasn't just in Europe that playing Chelsea heralded the departure of managers that season.

On the home front, Billy Davies effectively signed off his departure from Derby with his comments about the board in his post-match press conference, witnessed by OBE following our 2-0 win at Pride Park.

Chris Hutchings departed Wigan the Monday after a home defeat by the same scoreline against Chelsea. Bolton 0 Chelsea 1 in October 2007 was Sammy Lee's last game in charge of the Trotters.

Sam Allardyce lasted only one more Newcastle league game after losing at the Bridge that Christmas.

Last season was a whole lot more healthy for our Champions League opponents.

All apart from Maurizio Trombetta that is. The Italian was ex-coach of Cluj by the time he visited acquaintance Ray Wilkins at Cobham earlier this year.

For Luciano Spalletti, coach of Roma, beating Chelsea in the Italian capital a year ago re-ignited his flagging career there, at least until last month when Claudio Ranieri (who was sacked by Juventus two months after losing to Chelsea), was handed his job.

There was no problem for Laurent Blanc at Bordeaux who won the French title last season. Barcelona and Liverpool were our other European opponents in 2008/09. No need to go into details there.

In the Premier League, Chelsea didn't leave the damage in our wake of the previous year but did start the eight-game run of defeats that was Paul Ince's death knell at Blackburn, and our games preceded the end of two Sunderland managers - Roy Keane out four weeks after losing 5-0 at the Bridge; Ricky Sbragia resigning about four minutes after the final whistle of the final game of the season, although that was after successfully battling relegation.

So Chelsea now face a new Atletico Madrid manager next week. At the weekend Atletico missed a penalty at home against Mallorca, then went 1-0 up but conceded an equaliser against nine men in stoppage time when a cross deflected in off their keeper. Not one to improve the mood of the supporters.

The next day Quique Sanchez Flores, ex-Valencia, began work, which is where we came in.