Premier League: Five reasons why Chelsea shouldn't be favourites

Jose Mourinho has gone two years without winning a league title

Chelsea's swift transfer work has established them as 3.052/1 Premier League favourites, but Michael Lintorn doesn't believe the hype...

They don't win it often enough
Initially, success came easily to Roman Abramovich at Chelsea. They won the Premier League in two of his first three seasons as owner, despite the perceived difficulty of rivalling "invincible" Arsenal and a Man United team who won eight of the initial 11 Premier League titles. Their record since has been a million miles shy of acceptable: one triumph in eight years and none in the last four, finishing outside the top two in each of the previous three.

World Cups mess with their momentum
Chelsea's last two campaigns atop the Premier League table came immediately before the two prior World Cups, and on both occasions, they failed to stay on top after a summer of elite international football. They were dethroned by Man United both times, collecting eight points fewer in 2006/07 than 2005/06 and 15 points fewer in 2010/11 than 2009/10.

They weren't good enough last term
The Blues' World Cup curse is likely to have a graver impact this season as they tackle the issue from a starting spot of third not first. They finished four points behind Man City despite beating them and Liverpool twice, proving unusually vulnerable to careless point spills against non-top-eight sides. The additions of Felipe Luis, Cesc Fabregas and Diego Costa don't guarantee improvement, especially as the first two are replacements for Ashley Cole and Frank Lampard, two of their best ever players.

The growing Mourinho scepticism
Sir Alex Ferguson aside, almost every great modern manager has - often inexplicably - overseen one dud job amongst all the glory: Fabio Capello at England, Carlo Ancelotti at Juventus, Louis van Gaal at Netherlands (first stint), Rafael Benitez at Inter and Vicente del Bosque at Besiktas. After a shaky first year back at Chelsea and poor final term at Real Madrid, there is a theory that this is Mourinho's lull.

Too many cooks
There has arguably never been a Premier League campaign whereby being favourites is such a flimsy vote of confidence, because there are five clubs heading into it targeting top spot and four shorter than 8.07/1 to deliver. Chelsea's current price of 3.052/1 ranks them as frontrunners, but the market leaders in every other major European division are significantly shorter, whereas champions Man City are right behind them at 3.55/2.