Chelsea must improve quickly, admits Branislav Ivanovic

Mourinho’s need for new defenders was evident at Eastlands, as has been his desperation for the Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich to pay what it takes to sign Stones. City full-backs Aleksandar Kolarov (created the most City chances with a total of four) and, to a slightly lesser extent, Bacary Sagna pushed forwards and made sure that Chelsea’s defence could not remain compact, allowing playmaker David Silva to probe and prick any open wounds.

Cuadrado is among the list of attacking midfield targets Juventus are now working their way through.

It says much that Hazard’s most notable contribution to Chelsea’s campaign so far has been the injury he sustained in the latter stages of the game against Swansea that launched the Carneiro/Fearn polemic.

Manuel Pellegrini has strengthened City’s squad with Raheem Sterling, Patrick Roberts and Fabian Delph. It was in fact a tactical switch and it was also the first time in 176 games that Mourinho had subbed out Terry, who played every single second of last season’s title-winning season. When the Portuguese switched to the same tactic for the second half against City, Terry was replaced by Kurt Zouma.

While Mourinho stewed, Pellegrini was left to reflect on a performance that immediately reinstalled his side, deposed by Chelsea last season, as the Premier League’s team to beat.

It was the first time Mourinho had ever substituted Terry in the 177 appearances he has made under him at Chelsea.

One of City’s biggest problems of 2014-15 was that they weren’t playing to their full potential.

With his ridiculous logic, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho quickly went from a lovable lunatic to just sounding like a lunatic.

Chelsea have struggled to make serious inroads in the transfer window with left-back Baba Rahman, Asmir Begovic and Radamel Falcao the only signings that have been brought in to challenge in the first-team.

Last night, key striker Diego Costa and defender Branislav Ivanovic called for calm and promised things would get better, last season’s top scorer admitting he was not yet at his best.

Chelsea FC more or less sucked on Sunday afternoon, as they fell 3-0 to a dangerous-looking Manchester City side.

The humdrum performance in the Community Shield defeat to Arsenal was written off as a one-off below-par display in a prestigious friendly but the Premier League results against Swansea and Manchester City have been harder to explain.

“Two years ago we had a game against Chelsea where they completely dominated us”.

“All we can do is get past this start, improve on the training ground, get our sharpness going and look to West Brom“, he told the club’s official website.

As I said at the start, his assertion that the result didn’t reflect the game was simply wrong.

Worse was to follow on Sunday, though, as Mourinho suffered his joint-heaviest defeat as a Premier League manager. We know we have to look forward.