Jose might be right about bad luck and refs, but players are to blame too

So much for Chelsea working their way back to normality.

A string of clean sheets and a supremely well-organised 0-0 draw at Tottenham a week ago suggested a corner had been turned after a bafflingly inept start to the campaign. Normal service resumed. Watch the rise up the table.

But then came defeat against a newly-promoted side, who ordinarily would have been cowed into submission by reputation alone.

The first thing to say about Jose Mourinho’s post-match assessment about his side not deserving to lose against Bournemouth on Saturday is that he is probably right.

They might have had a penalty, the winning goal was offside and on the balance of play, the Blues ought to have won.

They showered Bournemouth with dangerous crosses and forced Cherries keeper Artur Boruc into several sharp saves.

Mourinho cited “individual inconsistencies” as part of the wretched run his side have put together, but he is still minded to look mostly at outside influences determining his side’s fate.

Whether he is right or wrong, how galling it must be for the Chelsea boss to be reduced to playing the banal “misfortune” card and blaming refereeing decisions.

Isn’t that what the bosses of little teams do? Isn’t that for the losers who don’t understand their own team’s flaws are to blame?

It does not seem long ago that luck, good or bad, was never playing a part. Before Sunderland’s end-of-season victory in April last year, Mourinho had gone 77 home Premier League games without defeat during his two spells in charge.

In that period, a win for the visitors to west London always seemed out of the question. The way Chelsea were set up, nothing was left to chance. No single refereeing decision, no defensive mishap would upset the remorseless accumulation of home points.

The defensive solidity. The overpowering midfields. The ability to always find a way, even when below par. There always seemed layers of excellence to offset the unforeseen.

Now there have been four home losses in the Premier League and the season is barely a third of the way in.

So what is going wrong? Whatever it is, we should discount the rather tedious mantra about officialdom and poor luck scuppering Chelsea’s season.

This is more than just a few freakish results now and, in any case, Mourinho is supposed to be the very best at devising systems which eliminate such vagaries.

It is feasible that the Portuguese does not truly believe what he says about bad referees and conspiracies and prefers the smokescreen to a public airing of his team’s current fallibilities.

But the impression this season has been of a man who has lost the over-arching control he has always seemed to exert.

Even the recent return to defensive solidity has faltered, to the extent that mixing up the personnel may be the last gamble.

Cesc Fabregas is still not the man of last season. Diego Costa is too busy picking fights to be effective. The Radamel Falcao gamble has not paid off. Branislav Ivanovic has imploded, Oscar has retreated into the shadows, Eden Hazard has not touched the heights that made him the champions’ best player. Thibaut Courtois has been out through injury for too long.

In short, it’s not one thing. But it’s clearly not just luck. The gears are grinding horribly and the problem will become even more acute if Wednesday night’s home game against Porto ends disastrously.

Imagine that. The club where Mourinho first announced himself on the international stage inflicting yet more damage to the Special One’s reputation for leaving failure to other managers.

Champions League elimination would surely invoke the mother of all laments against bad refs and bad luck.

But if Mourinho does decide to fall back on that old chestnut again, he must realise by now that there will be no universal acceptance of his interpretation – no matter how unlucky his side really are.