Roman Abramovich must back Jose Mourinho in the transfer market - then he will deliver for Chelsea

Show him the money: But there's certainly no reason to panic at Stamford Bridge
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Patrick Barclay7 December 2015

A wonderful exercise in pedantry took place over the weekend, when a listener phoned BBC radio’s 606 programme to take Robbie Savage up on his claim that Leicester “cannot” win the Premier League.

Yes they can, said the listener — they have 23 matches left and, if Claudio Ranieri’s team take three points from each, which would entail little more than maintenance of their current form, they will have 101 and be taking showers in bubbly.

The listener so warmed to his theme that Savage was obliged good-naturedly to concede that, yes, not only could Leicester be champions but bottom-of-the-table Aston Villa, with a maximum of 75 points, could secure at least a Champions League place. What he, Savage, had meant to say was “will not”.

It is by this splendid token that we must address the prospect of Chelsea’s relegation.

Things as strange have happened: in 1936-37 Manchester City were champions and the following season they went down (Charlton fans will know this because their club were regular title candidates in the years leading to the Second World War).

City didn’t change their manager, Wilf Wild, because status wasn’t supposed to be set in stone then. It was a more competitive and less money-governed game than in, say, 2013-14, when a slip from first to seventh prompted Manchester United to sack David Moyes before his first season had run.

Chelsea would probably settle for seventh. They definitely would if the man from 606 confronted them with the reality that a 23-time repetition of Saturday’s home defeat by Bournemouth would leave them with 15 points. But, to be serious, the question of Jose Mourinho’s future recurs because the financial stakes are so high.

Even further progress in the Champions League would not remove the necessity to keep the threat of relegation remote and, if results were not to improve, the relaxed air being projected at Stamford Bridge could hardly survive.

Chelsea vs Bournemouth - player ratings

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But I can’t see any reason to panic. I thought it was a superb match on Saturday, in keeping with the season’s refreshingly old-fashioned mood. Bournemouth were brilliant, Chelsea not too bad.

If Mourinho’s team had been as poor as Manchester City at Stoke, or United against West Ham, or Liverpool for some of yesterday’s match at Newcastle, there would be cause for more acute concern. They were just tentative in the last third.

Roman Abramovich could have sacked Mourinho over the Eva Carneiro incident — and maybe should have done — but there are no good football reasons to jettison, again, a man whose record glitters.

Chelsea just need to get back to buying with the skill displayed the summer before last. If they do, Mourinho will, in all likelihood, deliver.

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