Chelsea must make history to reach Premier League top four after poor start
Friday 30 October 2015 06:30, UK
Chelsea must set a Premier League record to make the top four this season.
The defending champions are currently 15th in the table with just 11 points from their first 10 games. No team has finished in the top four after making such a poor start.
In fact, no team with fewer than 13 points at this stage has made fourth place.
Leeds United took 13 points from their first 10 games in 1998/99 and went on to finish fourth with 67 points, and Louis van Gaal's Manchester United repeated the feat last season, ending the campaign with 70 points.
Securing Champions League football for next season will seem a long way off for Jose Mourinho and his players right now. They currently trail fourth-placed Manchester United by 11 points and have just one win in their last seven games in all competitions.
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The prospect of retaining their Premier League title looks even more remote.
No team has won the Premier League with fewer than 18 points from their first 10 games. No team has finished runners-up with fewer than 16 points from their first 10 games.
However, Liverpool - Chelsea's opponents this weekend - showed in 2006/07 that success can be salvaged from a slow start.
That season Liverpool had 14 points from their first 10 games but went on to finish third in the Premier League and made the Champions League final, where they lost out to AC Milan.
These stats are just a few of many in Martin Tyler's weekly column. Read his latest post here - including stats on which Premier League player has scored the most goals without netting a hat-trick and which team has gone 74 games without a 0-0.
