Chelsea: John Terry and Branislav Ivanovic face uncertain Stamford Bridge future after poor performances

Chelsea's defensive duo John Terry and Branislav Ivanovic are fighting for their careers at the club after the Blues made a poor start to the 2015/16 campaign. The Stamford Bridge outfit's Premier League title defence has got off to the worst start possible with the champions already trailing challengers Manchester City by 11 points after five games.

According to the Daily Mail, Jose Mourinho is not convinced the duo deserve extensions at the end of the current season. Both the defenders are on the final year of their contracts and will have to wait until the New Year to find out if they will be handed new deals.

The Serbian, who has been a rock alongside the Chelsea skipper in recent seasons, has had a difficult start, along with the Englishman. Both have been held responsible by the manager for the club's poor start, which has seen it win just one game and lose three in the Premier League. The duo were axed by the manager for Chelsea's first Champions League game against Maccabi Tel Aviv and have not been given guarantees of a first-team place for the visit of Arsenal on Saturday 19 August.

The Portuguese manager is still keen to see his most influential players at the club get over their early season slump. Owing to their dedicated service to the club in the years gone by, he will give them time to come out of the rut and prove that they deserve new deals at the end of the current campaign. Chelsea, however, will stick to their policy of handing players over 30 only 12-month deals.

Meanwhile, Blues midfielder Oscar has revealed that the players' confidence took a beating following their poor start to the season. He admitted that a lot of the players were unhappy going into games due to a lack of wins this season.

The Brazilian international believes the win against the Israeli side in the Champions League has boosted the team's confidence ahead of their upcoming clash with the north London club. "Everyone has been sad...and we need to win," Oscar said, as quoted by the Daily Mail. "Everyone has not been confident before the games, because of our run we changed a little bit. The team won the Premier League last year, now we need to take confidence from that."

"We have won against Maccabi, but we haven't played well in the Premier League but we need to win against Arsenal as well. Now we have won and we are happy. Everyone has changed and everyone is confident now," the Brazilian added.