Woeful Chelsea lose at home against Palace to pile pressure on awestruck Mourinho

The latest edition of the Barclays Premier League is well and truly underway after the teams took part in their fourth set of fixtures. A lot of predictions were made even before a ball was kicked and most football fans saw Chelsea to be the favourites for the title once again. However, now that the competition has truly kicked off, the most surprising point about the season till now has to be Chelsea’s woefully poor start.

Jose Mourinho’s side headed into their home game against Crystal Palace after notching up only four points from a possible 9 and the pressure was on them to deliver a victory against Alan Pardew’s men. Reality, as they say, is sometimes stranger than fiction, and this was one game that proved this adage correct.

Chelsea ended up losing for the second time this season to un-fancied Crystal Palace. If Mourinho was disappointed with his legions for their performances in the first three games of the season, then he will be raging with the display that he saw in their fourth game. A hapless Blues side, adorned with some of the biggest football stars on the planet, put in a shameful performance that led to the visitors running out winners by two goals to one. Bakary Sako gave Palace the lead in the 65th minute of the match after converting a Yannick Bolasie cross at the second time of asking. The well-built winger joined Pardew’s men on a free transfer from Wolves over the summer and two goals in two games has got to make him their signing of the season.

Reigning champions Chelsea did well to claw themselves back into the game despite not playing nearly as well as they’d want to. Radamel Falcao got his first goal for Chelsea and what a goal it was! A brilliantly executed diving header that just about managed to creep in past opposition ‘keeper McCarthy at the near post is some way to introduce yourself to a new crowd. Falcao’s 79th-minute equaliser had the home support believing that they could actually manage to grab a sneaky win from the game, but how mistaken they were.

Just moments after the restart, Sako played the role of provider as he superbly cut the ball back into the path of Joel Ward who aced another exquisite diving header past three Chelsea players and into the back of the net. Any hopes of a Chelsea come back did not come to fruition and it turned out to be another bad day at the office for Jose Mourinho, who celebrated his 100th Premier League game by recording only his second ever loss at Stamford Bridge.

The Portuguese manager will be extremely worried to see the manner in which his champions have crumbled against weaker opposition. A loss against Manchester City at the Etihad can be accepted, but there is no way that a loss against Crystal Palace at the Bridge will go down well with either the owners or the fans and while Mourinho is arguably the best manager in the world, his past accolades will not be able to protect him if things carry on the way they are.