Gary Neville reveals why Chelsea won't win the Premier League title

Fernando Torres

Sky Sports pundits Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville both believe that Chelsea’s strikeforce could end up costing them the title.

Neville believes that the inadequacies of Chelsea’s strikeforce have helped make them third favourites for the title, arguing that manager Jose Mourinho had failed to tackle the longstanding problem with his summer recruitment.

“I think [Chelsea are probably third favourites] after the last two results,” argued Neville.

“Other managers in the league –David Moyes and Arsene Wenger – have been criticised for recruitment and getting it wrong in the summer or not having time.

“Jose Mourinho put all his eggs in one basket with Wayne Rooney. [He] made the bid for him, thought he was going to get him and thought he had the deal done.

“You could tell at the start of the season that he had that glint in his eye that he thought he’d done the business and that he knew what was happening and was in control. But was left with nothing.

“Then [Romelu] Lukaku goes out on loan, who could have helped him, so you’d have to say that in some ways they’ve been aware of the problem all season.

“It’s been an obvious problem – they’ve been switching between Torres, Ba and Eto’o, all of which are just below that level that other teams have.

“You think of [Edin] Dzeko, [Sergio] Aguero and [Alvaro] Negredo, or [Daniel] Sturridge and [Luis] Suarez at Liverpool, they’re below that level, well below.

“I think if they’d had one or two of those players they’d be in a [better] position, because Jose Mourinho doesn’t throw leads away, he doesn’t throw leads away from winning positions and at this moment in time it’s those strikers that are costing him.”

Carragher agreed with his colleague over the weakness of the Stamford Bridge side’s strikeforce, but pointed to their inability to break the weaker teams down as reason behind their faltering title challenge.

“A lot of it is down to them (the strikers.) I think Mourinho has gone on the record that he wants new striker. I think it’s obvious to everyone,” agreed Carragher.

“I think it’s easy to point the finger at the strikers. We know they’re not what he wants.

“But in terms of breaking teams down [they struggle.] He’s spoken about 19th century football against West Ham. [Villa, Palace & West Brom] would have done exactly the same – parked the bus [and] made it difficult for them.

“They obviously have a problem breaking teams down. So it’s not just the striker.

“Those games, if they don’t win the league, are going to cost them because they haven’t lost a big game yet.

“The problem that they’ve got is, they’ve only got one more big game against a big rival at Liverpool.

“It’s the other games where they keep dropping points that at the end of the season will cost them the title.”