A former Chelsea star appeared to brand the club a circus following their 3-1 defeat to Manchester City, apparently having been snubbed by his former team.
The Blues' difficult run continued on Sunday when they lost to the defending Premier League champions, putting their hopes of qualifying for the Champions League in doubt by falling outside the top five.
After an impressive start to the season that saw them labeled by some as title contenders, Enzo Maresca's men have won just once in their last seven games and were also second at the Etihad.
After taking the lead early on thanks to Noni Madueke, Josko Gvardiol, Erling Haaland and Phil Foden scored to give City the victory, who are starting to find their form again.
Meanwhile, on social media, a former Chelsea player, who played for the club between 2017 and 2022, appeared criticizing the club as they shared a message to their 590,000 followers.
The player in question was Danny Drinkwater, who sat at City's Etihad to watch the match before signing up for his former team.
Former Chelsea star Danny Drinkwater appeared to brand the club a circus on social media.
The former midfielder explained why he was sitting on the home field during Chelsea's trip to Manchester City
He played for the Blues between 2017 and 2022, but only scored 23 goals during that period.
“For the Chelsea fan who wonders why I'm at City's field…” he began. 'I asked him for tickets to the club!?!
“I didn't get any,” he continued, accompanied by a circus emoji and an eye-rolling emoji.
Drinkwater joined the Blues in 2017 after winning the Premier League with Leicester, signing a five-year contract in a £35million move that is remembered as one of the worst transfers in Premier League history.
In his first season with the club, he made 22 appearances but, under Maurizio Sarri, only appeared once the following year before joining Burnley on loan.
He also played for Aston Villa, Kasimpasa in Turkey and Reading before the 34-year-old was released by Chelsea in 2022 and then retired in October 2023. In total, he played 23 times for the London club.
Drinkwater has been open about his off-field problems while at Chelsea. In April 2019, he crashed his £125,000 Range Rover into a wall while over the limit, injuring two passengers and earning a 20-month driving ban.
He told The High Performance Podcast in October 2023: “That was a big wake-up call for me. I was in the cell for 23 hours to sober up and I'm in this cell thinking, 'What the fuck are you doing, dude?' That's when I started looking for outside help with all of this.
He also took advantage of drunken nights to find solace. “I was trying to enjoy that side of life as a kind of cover for everything else,” he said.
Drinkwater had initially shared an image of the scoreboard when his former team was leading 1-0.
Before joining the Blues for £23m, he won the Premier League with Leicester.
Enzo Maresca's team, for its part, has only one victory in its last seven games in the top category.
On his Instagram account, his three pinned photos are all from his time at Chelsea, and the first when his signing was confirmed eight years ago.
Another is a photo of him alongside Claudio Raneiri, Eden Hazard and Ngolo Kante, while the third is of him drinking a bottle of water in the Blues kit.
He posted two Instagram stories about the match, the first featuring a video of the score when Chelsea were 1-0 up, accompanied by a series of eye emojis.
The second, however, seemed to attack the club, after fans asked him why he was at home.