Diego Costa has moved to ease the pressure on José Mourinho by insisting the blame for Chelsea’s dismal start to the campaign lies squarely with the players and admitted he had returned overweight for pre-season training.

Chelsea have made their worst start to a campaign in 37 years and are 16th, prompting Roman Abramovich to issue an unprecedented vote of confidence in Mourinho this week. Costa has managed only one goal in six Premier League appearances – he had scored eight at the corresponding stage last term – and has now completed a three-match suspension having been banned retrospectively for flinging an arm at Laurent Koscielny during the victory over Arsenal last month.

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The striker, who was omitted from Spain’s squad for the Euro 2016 qualifiers against Luxembourg and Ukraine, is one of the few Chelsea players not away on international duty and took the chance to supportMourinho, accepting the culprits for the team’s start have been the players. “We know we’re not in the form we were supposed to be at the beginning of the season,” he said. “We need to blame the players because we came back from holiday very confident, thinking we could go back into how it was last season, and then realised the team was already in a bad situation.

“I’m going to be very honest: maybe a few weeks ago, five or six weeks ago, I was not on top of my game. At least physically. We talk within the players and we know that, maybe at the beginning, we were not 100% as we were supposed to be when we got here. I got injured at the end of last season and then I went on holiday. Maybe I got out of my diet and, when I came back, I was not the way I was supposed to be. I was a little bit overweight. That affected my game. You can be selfish and blame it on the manager but I’m not going to do that. I’m responsible 100%, and so are the other guys. So all we can do now is train very hard and work very hard to try to get back to that level where we were the season before.”

Mourinho, aware of the strain last season had placed on a relatively thin senior squad, had opted to grant the players an extra week off before a training camp in Montreal and friendly fixtures in the United States. The manager has since cited a lack of preparation time as one of the factors to explain his team’s difficult start, with half of their eight league games having been lost and key personnel out of form.

He has made his frustrations known to the squad, singling out senior players for criticism in team meetings. “He’s very direct, straightforward,” Costa said. “He always speaks what he thinks and what he believes to be the truth. Sometimes it’s not what people want to hear. It’s the way he is and it’s why, sometimes, they criticise him.There are managers who always say what people want to hear. I think that’s not good. I’d rather have someone who tells me straight up what happens rather than sweet things that I want to hear.

“If you ask a million players who they want as their manager, they will all come back with a top three list of Mourinho, [Pep] Guardiola and [Diego] Cholo Simeone. It was one of the reasons I joined Chelsea because you know when you have a manager that is always successful, is always in the title race and always playing in the Champions League and competing at the top level, it’s going to help you develop and become a better player. And help you win titles in your career.

“He is always giving us all the support we need, and the players talk to each other and say he is the best manager you can have. Always when things don’t go the way that everyone expects, people, the supporters as well, always look for someone to blame. In some cases they blame the players. In this case they blame the manager, maybe because the manager is Mourinho. Maybe he gets criticised because he is very good. Maybe he gets criticised because he is Mourinho. I have been here for more than a season and have seen sides that have lost many more games than Chelsea, and no one criticises their managers.

“I’m here because I’m happy with the manager but I’m not only speaking on my behalf. I am here to speak for everyone, for the group. All that matters at the end of the day is the group. Yes, he has supported me, but he has shown support for all of the players. I have spoken to all of the players and they all feel the same way about José. I don’t like giving interviews, but I’m speaking for the group. We all feel the same way about José.”