Patrick Barclay: Only Jose Mourinho can be held responsible for Chelsea’s slump

Can Jose Mourinho ever have confounded football’s chattering classes as utterly as now? He had us all — or most of us — fooled.

I saw no reason why the team who finished rock-solid champions shouldn’t begin this season in similar vein. True, Mourinho had overdone the referee-baiting — to Chelsea’s cost — but no manager becomes world class without learning from mistakes, however arrogant Mourinho may seem.

The resumption, though, brought alarming evidence of a wasted summer. Not so much in terms of squad replenishment — the main holes had been filled a year earlier — but the condition of so many individuals.

They were lucky to draw at home to Swansea and have since lost to Manchester City, Crystal Palace and Everton.

In all cases, it would be an injustice to excellent opposition to call the results disgraceful — John Stones looked the heart and soul of a handsome Everton on Saturday — but Chelsea are not used to this and only Mourinho can be held responsible, as he has been for so many triumphs.

His performance has been as unimpressive as any player’s — with the possible exception of Branislav Ivanovic, who used to stand alongside John Terry as a pillar of Chelsea’s strength but now caricatures their weakness and deserves, especially after his part in Everton’s second goal, to be dropped.

Mourinho began with his undignified rant at Eva Carneiro. He followed up by picking a foolishly optimistic team at the Etihad. The withdrawal of Terry there, though tactically legitimate, would not have done much for the manager’s authority and nor — frivolous though it may seem — would his daughter’s scantily clad appearance alongside him at a dinner.

Maccabi Tel Aviv will be encouraged — and even more so Saturday’s visitors to the Bridge, Arsenal, led by the Specialist In Failure. “I know a lot of people are happy,” says Mourinho.

Inevitably, after some of the things he has said. But not all. And something needs to be put right.