Chelsea already find themselves nine points behind Premier League leaders Manchester City after a shock away defeat to rock-bottom Crystal Palace last weekend. That has led to many claiming the Blues aren’t quite up to successfully defending their top-flight crown this season for various reasons, mostly a lack of strength in depth.

Former Blues star Chris Sutton said as much in his recent column for MailOnline, as well as singling out new signing Alvaro Morato for criticism.

“Chelsea replaced a reliable centre forward in Diego Costa with a striker in Alvaro Morata who has ability but has not yet gone the distance in a league campaign.”

But does Sutton have a point?

We asked our best writers for their thoughts of Chelsea’s perceived issues and Sutton’s quite damning assessment…

Christy Malyan

It’s looking like it won’t be Chelsea’s season and that is unquestionably linked with their failure to bring in certain players during the summer.

It’s quite interesting Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ross Barkley and Fernando Llorente all turned the west Londoners down during the final few days of the transfer window, and Antonio Conte now appears to be paying the price. But it’s being quickly forgotten that some very ruthless decisions were made during the summer, with Nemanja Matic, Diego Costa and John Terry all moving on.

That’s taken away vast leadership and experience from Chelsea’s starting XI, so it’s almost inevitable that they’re struggling to match the consistency of last year. They’re still a good side and the replacements, Alvaro Morata, Tiemoue Bakayoko and Antonio Rudiger, have more than enough talent to replicate the levels of their predecessors, but it feels like this will mostly be a season of transition for Chelsea – probably glossed over with an FA Cup or League Cup.

There’s no shame in that if they’re back to their best next season.

Chris McMullan

Sutton’s comments seem unfair, but perhaps that’s to be expected from such a short article that was never given the chance to go into any real detail of his argument.

Essentially, he thinks that Chelsea’s summer business left the squad short. That might well be true, and clearly that was the worry this summer. But picking out Alvaro Morata for criticism is particularly strange given the Spanish international has scored seven goals in seven starts in all competitions this season.

His assertion is that Morata hasn’t proved that he can do it over the course of a whole season, and that may well turn out to be a problem. But, for now, he certainly can’t be blamed for the fact that Chelsea find themselves nine points behind the Premier League leaders.

Olly Huddlestone

It seems that way. Like Mourinho before him, Conte is finding it difficult to defend the title won so convincingly the previous season.

If you compare with rivals Man United and Man City’s strength and depth it is clear what Chelsea need to do in January – strengthen in every position.

If the season continues to go downhill for the Blues, you can expect a flurry of transfers in the new year.