Chelsea news: Four reasons why the Blues can be relegated this season - and one reason why they will survive

Chelsea sit just one point above the relegation zone after winning just 15 points from their first 16 matches

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho (Getty Images)

Another Premier League round completed, another defeat for Chelsea, and the realisation that the defending champions are in a relegation battle finally seems to be hitting home at Stamford Bridge.

With Jose Mourinho’s side currently languishing in 16th in the Premier League table having claimed just 15 points from their opening 16 matches, the Blues are currently experiencing the worst ever title defence in Premier League history.

Should they continue their current points-per-game ratio of 0.94, they will finish the season with just 35 points to their name.

Just one club has stayed up with fewer points than that in the form of West Bromwich Albion’s miracle season in 2004/05.

But surely Chelsea have enough class among their squad to turn their fortunes around? Isn’t their manager too good to be relegated, too good to be sacked again?

Here are a few reasons why Chelsea need to accept they are in a relegation battle:

They have the third worst form over the last two months

Only Aston Villa and Swansea have picked up fewer points than Chelsea over their last seven Premier League matches, and the run of poor results has to be cause for concern for the Chelsea hierarchy. The Blues have shown signs of improving recently, but the results – and the league table – do not replicate that.

Unless Chelsea can start to turn their performances into goals and subsequently put points on the board, they’re going to be in big trouble come the end of the season.

Chelsea haven’t had to deal with an injury crisis yet

Take a look at Arsenal, Manchester City and even Manchester United’s squad and you’ll see an injury list as long as Roman Abramovich’s private yacht. Yet the Premier League title contenders have pushed on regardless and find themselves nicely poised to challenge for top honours heading towards the new year and beyond.

Chelsea on the other hand have had most of their first-team members available for selection throughout the season. The loss of Thibaut Courtois has proven to be the only costly long-term absence that the Blues have suffered this season – the less said about Radamel Falcao the better – and the Belgian returned to action earlier this month. If an wave of injuries hits Stamford Bridge, the outcome doesn’t bear thinking about for the Blues faithful.

Their key players look like their heads are somewhere else

Diego Costa, Eden Hazard and Cesc Fabregas have just three league goals between them, and all of those have come from the out-of-form striker with Hazard and Fabregas yet to break their season duck. Revert to this time last year, and the trio had mustered 19 goals to fire Chelsea clear at the top of the table.

Fabregas looks a shadow of the player that led the league in assists last season, while Hazard limped out of the defeat by Leicester having picked up what appeared to be a hip injury. Costa remains his aggressive self, but defenders seem to have worked him out and unless Chelsea freshen up the way they play in the opposition half, they’re going to continue to struggle.

Mourinho is showing clear signs he’s turning against his players

Rarely will you see a manager accuse his entire squad of “betraying” him, but that’s the precise word that Mourinho selected to describe Chelsea’s inability to convert their training ground methods into their performance at the King Power Stadium. When managers begin to turn on their players, it usually results in only one scenario, and that doesn’t spell good news for Mourinho.

The Portuguese went on to try and spell out a unified front by claiming the things he sees on the training ground during the week is exactly what he wants, but this problem is much worse than it appears. Previous reports of discontent among the squad, players clearly not playing for their manager and now a mass “betrayal”, these are all things that do not send out the right message to their relegation rivals.

But here’s one reason why they won’t be relegated:

As marked out in the seven things we learnt in the Premier League this weekend, this season’s campaign can be accused of lacking the quality of previous years given the low points totals being seen at the top of the table. Every time one side sees the chance to break free from the pack, they appear to slip up – something that Leicester have capitalised on to lead the pack.

But this can also apply to the bottom of the table, albeit in reverse. No team in the bottom three in the past six seasons have had more points than Chelsea currently hold at this stage of the campaign. In fact, Aston Villa’s pitiful haul of six points is the lowest since Derby held the same number in December 2007.

With Sunderland up next, the Blues can put some space between themselves and the bottom two, and Swansea are showing all the signs of a side consigned to a relegation dogfight. Unless any of those three can dramatically change the way they play, the relegation spots may already be filled.