Chelsea’s nightmare of a campaign continued yesterday, as the reigning Premier League champions suffered a 1-0 at Stoke’s Britannia Stadium.
The defeat was the Blues seventh of the season in the top-flight from only 12 games.
The defeat will bring into sharp focus the future of boss Jose Mourinho, who has tried everything to change his team’s fortunes, with little success. The former ‘Special One’ currently looks more like the ‘bemused one’, as his team seems to have lost all belief.
The transformation from title winners to relegation candidates has been a quite extraordinary one. Chelsea’s performances this season have been inexplicable.
The only explanation for the under-achievement this season is that Mourinho has lost the belief of his players.
The old cliché about a manager losing a dressing room is often spouted, but for all the dismissals of a player revolt, there is a major psychological problem within in that squad.
Chelsea are now too far behind their rivals to mount a realistic charge for Premier League title this season and even making the top four this season would be considered an achievement.
Had Mourinho been any other boss Chelsea would most likely have not given him so much time and he would have been replaced in the Blues dugout weeks ago.
The Portuguese boss is a club legend and still a great manager, but it seems that something has broken within that Chelsea squad that simply cannot be fixed by the man himself. He needs to leave for the sake of his career.
A new boss will come in and revive the confident and fix the shattered confidence of players who have big reputations and egos. It seems Mourinho may just be coming to the end of his second spell as Chelsea boss.
Should Chelsea sack Jose Mourinho?
