What’s The Matter With…Jose Mourinho’s second Chelsea stint
Published:The three goals Chelsea shipped to Stoke at the weekend ticked their goals against tally along to 17 in the Premier League, two more than during the entirety of Jose Mourinho’s debut campaign in west London in 2004/05.
With that same defensive conviction clearly lacking from the Blues’ makeup this season, it’s imperative that their strike-force hits the back of the net with regularity in order to ensure that the Stamford Bridge sides’ title bid, which is currently priced at 11/4 to be successful, remains on course.
Only the problem is that Fernando Torres, Samuel Eto’o and Demba Ba are failing in that respect too. It leaves Chelsea five points behind London rivals Arsenal in second place, with their manager admitting that the challenge for league supremacy is “in trouble”.
No side has lifted the Premier League trophy in the last four seasons without a striker scoring more than 20 goals on their books.
None of the current Chelsea trio have more than two this season, while the top scorers of the three other leaders in the Premier League betting market, Man City, Arsenal and Liverpool have between eight and 14.
Every title winner in the Premier League era has employed at least one front man who’s managed a double-figure goal tally, and while Chelsea’s blunt set of knives may find some sharpness in the remainder of the season, the side cannot afford to wait too long for them to locate their steel.
It is down to Mourinho to find a solution, but his claims that he no longer knows what to do in order to get the three players firing, along with some insipid results, is conspiring to downgrade his much-used nickname from Special to Ordinary.
All the while the Portuguese must sit and watch Romelu Lukaku score goal after goal for temporary owners Everton, with the Belgian managing more strikes so far than all three remaining Chelsea strikers combined.
All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.
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