Ex-Chelsea midfielder Craig Burley has suggested that his former club should have sacked Jose Mourinho and beaten Liverpool to the signing of Jurgen Klopp.

The German arrived in English football last week to replace Brendan Rodgers, who was sacked by the Reds after winning 12 points from a possible 24 so far.

In contrast, Mourinho's Premier League champions have already dropped 16 points, and Burley feels that the Blues should have been the ones appointing the 48-year-old.

The Portuguese has courted criticism for his handling of the Eva Carneiro row, and more recently was slapped with a £50,000 fine and a one-match stadium ban for post-match comments following the 3-1 defeat by Southampton last month.

"A couple of weeks ago when all this nonsense was going on [with Mourinho] I said that Chelsea should get rid of this guy now," Burley told talkSPORT. "Klopp was out there, he was going to go to Liverpool, and Chelsea should have gone and got him. That didn't happen and clearly it wasn't going to happen but that was my opinion of what they should have done. I would have gone and got him.

"I was not saying Mourinho should go because of a few bad results. I was basing it on the fact that Chelsea are a global brand and the way Mourinho was acting, behaving and speaking outside of the 90 minutes of football was dragging the club, the players and their image through the mud.

"Managers can get bad results, but Mourinho has to have a look at himself in terms of the way he handles things. It is not everyone else's fault all the time."

Mourinho's men host struggling Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.