• Premier League

Chelsea's title charge will be a cakewalk ... their rivals aren't good enough to stop them

To follow on from the thrills of last season's Premier League title race - eventually decided on the final day - 2014-15 already looks a cakewalk for Jose Mourinho's Chelsea team.

His formula for success looks likely to drive the same desired results: take the lead and stay there, leave the rest floundering, catch them cold. It is the recipe with which Mourinho has won each of his seven titles in four different countries.

Only Chelsea can stop themselves, but they know that too. We are already at that point in the season where the club's grandees are playing things down. "Clearly it's not over - other teams have been in that position," John Terry said on Sunday after captaining a rather routine 2-0 victory over Arsenal. "It's nice to have the lead, but when you're at the top everyone wants to shoot you down from top to bottom."

That no team currently looks capable of shooting them down is ominous. Chelsea are in a position of strength while their rivals stay in flux, just as was the case in 2004-05, Mourinho's first Chelsea title campaign. For Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard, read Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas, with Costa looking - so far - an even more devastating finisher than the club legend who now understudies him.

For Arjen Robben, Chelsea's flier from the wings, there is now Eden Hazard, developed into a true match-winner, and against whom Arsenal had no answer.

Diego Costa is Jose Mourinho's Didier Drogba this time around © Getty Images

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Back in 2004, Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United were either ageing - with Roy Keane's physique beginning to fail him - or too callow; Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo were teenagers. The sale of David Beckham in the summer of 2003, and some disastrous transfer business with the proceeds (think Kleberson, Eric Djemba Djemba), had also robbed a discontented Ruud van Nistelrooy of his main supply line.

Arsenal were the title holders in that summer of 2004. Their "Invincibles" season was the finest of the Premier League era, but it brought a fragility to the following campaign. Having flown so high, any setback proved disastrous. A 2-0 defeat to United at Old Trafford on October 24 burst Arsenal's bubble in what would have been their 50th unbeaten match and ended in the 'Pizzagate' saga.

The fallout saw a sudden loss of faculties, a comedown from which Arsene Wenger's club have probably never recovered. Though Liverpool ended the season as European Cup winners in Istanbul, they put in no title challenge whatsoever, eventually finishing fifth behind David Moyes' Everton.

In this 10th anniversary season of that first Chelsea triumph, the lie of the land is markedly similar. There seems nobody to touch them. United are fourth but yet to play the other contenders, with Chelsea's visit to Old Trafford on October 26 the first acid test of Louis van Gaal's rather wobbly new regime.

Arsenal were dispatched with relative ease on Sunday, to continue the wretched Wenger record [P12, W0] against Mourinho that began a decade ago. Mourinho gets to him, as that touchline contretemps revealed. Wenger may wish to never mention Mourinho by name - "somebody confronted me" was as far as he would go - but the identity of his nemesis is clear to everybody, and probably most of all, himself.

Liverpool are close to the Arsenal 2004 category: the roots of their failings lie in the previous season. April, in fact. They are yet to recover from the Anfield afternoon when a tracksuited Mourinho, playing up to the catcalls, had his team rope-a-dope against Brendan Rodgers' previously counter-punching side, before Demba Ba then stole in to kill the dream to seal a 2-0 win. Rodgers now finds his own formula is nowhere near as effective, with Luis Suarez so sorely missed.

Which leaves just Manchester City - the enigma. Saturday's 2-0 win at Aston Villa revealed that their class endures yet for 80 minutes in Birmingham, there was a disjointedness to compare unfavourably to last season's title team. Yaya Toure's goal, scored in a style that had previously looked beyond him, has to kickstart his season. "I'm not a machine, I'm a man," he suggested himself on Saturday. City badly require the machine.

Sergio Aguero's late strike across Villa goalkeeper Brad Guzan reminded that Diego Costa should not have it all his own way when it comes to deciding English football's leading forward, though the Argentine's hamstring is even less durable than Mourinho would have us believe that Costa's is.

The wranglings over Costa's muscles is about as testy as matters have got for Mourinho, a reflection of the gentle breeze his season has been so far. Even a concussion suffered by goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois against Arsenal - once he was eventually removed from service - offered a show of strength when Petr Cech came on as a substitute.

Meanwhile, the manager's media profile has been comparatively low. Only when his rivalries heat up do his barbs get sharp. There has been no such need. Victory over Arsenal allowed him to bat away Wenger's ire with a shrug. "I think these conditions make a game of emotions," he said on Sunday. "Story over. No problem. No outstanding issues."

He might have been talking about Chelsea's campaign. They are making matters look easy while all around them flounder. The usual formula is working once again.

Jose Mourinho's magic is still shining 10 years after he won his first Premier League title with Chelsea © PA Photos

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This article originally appeared on ESPN FC

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