Jose Mourninho puts Chelsea top of Match of the Day

Chelsea have topped the Match of the Day running order more times than any other team so far this season, and have lost on each occasion.

The BBC’s head of football Mark Cole says the “soap opera” surrounding the struggles of the reigning champions and the behaviour of their under-pressure manager Jose Mourinho has been a tough combination for the programme-makers to resist, with the Blues making five appearances in the top slot.

Other than West Ham — whose victories against Arsenal, Manchester City and Chelsea earned them the prime position on the main Saturday night highlights show on three occasions — no other top-flight club have been shown first more than twice.

Mourinho’s side have won just three league games this campaign. Two of them happened on a Saturday, but neither their win against Arsenal nor the one over Aston Villa was deemed good enough for the lead game.

But the programme did decide defeats to Crystal Palace, Everton, Liverpool and Stoke — as well as the 2-1 defeat to the Hammers at Upton Park — were worthy of going on first, with the action on the pitch usually enhanced by the controversial words or actions of Mourinho.

Cole said: “When the champions are losing, it is always a story. Throw in a bit of Jose Mourinho and it means they are quite often in the mix around the top of the running order.”

Asked if Mourinho himself was a key factor, Cole added: “Absolutely. In one of the last rounds of games, when he did his interview we actually ran it in full and it was about two minutes. Normally we would put a couple of 20-second clips in there, but we decided to run it in full because it was a really interesting exchange and we thought that was really insightful for the audience to see Mourinho’s state of mind.”