Former Blue Pat Nevin has questioned Chelsea’s chances of mounting a title challenge this season after they suffered their second defeat of the season on Saturday at home to Manchester City.

Chelsea sit 4th in the table, 6 points behind the leaders City, and many have surprisingly doubted Conte’s chances of defending his Premier League crown despite only 7 games being played.

Nevin, who made over 190 appearances for the Blues, says that Manchester City are setting the standard at the top of the league and questions whether or not Chelsea will be able to keep up with them. He also gave his views on the news that Alvaro Morata could be out for some time with a hamstring injury.

Writing in his Chelsea column Nevin said: “City in particular are the benchmark for quality right now.”

“If they keep up their skill levels, speed and style from the start of this season then they will be very hard to catch.”

“That does not mean to say it will be impossible, we have a very good-looking league run between now and the end of the calendar year, one in which we could really put some pressure on the current leaders.”

“But to do something special in that period we are going to need Alvaro Morata back and hopefully that hamstring problem is only a tweak.”

“He certainly seemed to stop immediately after he felt it; it didn’t look like a ‘ping!’ moment as we say in the game.”

“The tell-tale signs are familiar to all players and most fans when a hamstring strain is a bad one, so I would be mildly concerned as opposed to genuinely worried, but we will see.”

There is no indication yet on when the 24-year-old will return to action for Chelsea, but one thing is for sure, the Blues will be desperate for him to return asap.