‘Jose Mourinho’ they chanted around Stamford Bridge and the sub text was clear. What they meant to say was: ‘Arsene Wenger, your time has gone.’

Then came the cruellest cut, as the Chelsea fans echoed their manager’s own brutal words: ‘Specialist in failure.’

Mourinho is of course the last guest you want to invite to a party. It was inevitable that he would upset the guests and spoils the celebrations. He did so, but in the best way imaginable: on the pitch, with his team’s performance.

For Mourinho has always bridled at the admiration that English football has shown Wenger, you suspect because he considers himself tactically superior.

On Saturday, as the occasion of the 1000thgame for Wenger turned out to be the Arsenal’s manager’s worst, he will feel as though he demonstrated that conclusively.

He has saved something especially for Wenger: this day of all days he would deliver his biggest ever win for Chelsea, a victory all the more spectacular for its foundation being laid with two goals in the first ten minutes

‘We came to kill — and in ten minutes we destroyed,’ said Mourinho. ‘It was ten amazing minutes and with ten minutes you can win the game. i’m so happy with the approach.. After that, easy.

‘But if I analyse the game it’s about the ten minutes. I don’t know if it was the best performance but it was a very good performance.’

It was not just that Chelsea were good, though they were, with Nemanja Matic and Andre Schurrle outstanding; it was that Arsenal were so bad.

All the old fault lines were exposed and the searing doubts about the future returned.

Where Wenger once led the way as the thinking man’s coach, on Saturday he was out-thought and out-played.

Just as Brendan Rodgers’ Liverpool had executed a simple game plan against his team by pressing them high up the pitch, forcing errors and then exposing them with pace, so Chelsea offered their own version of that strategy.

While Liverpool were 4-0 up in 20 minutes, Chelsea took 17 minutes to get to 3-0. Away from home against their principal title rivals, Arsenal have conceded 17 goals. Statistics, Wenger’s great strength, are beginning to stack up against him.

The goals were calamitous. For the first it was Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain who gave the ball away; for the second, it was Santi Cazorla; for the fourth, Laurent Koscielny totally missed a clearance; for the fifth, Tomas Rosicky passed to Oscar.

Such awful errors cannot be individually attributed to the manager. But the tactical set up – to start with a lightweight midfield against such a physically powerful team – and the inability to close down a game can.

‘We pressed very, very high,’ said Mourinho. ‘We know they want the ball, they want to build from the back and they want to be comfortable with the ball. We pressed them very high immediately, recovered the ball and we were attacking the space very, very fast.’

The fact that Arsenal are so easy to read is clearly Wenger’s responsibility, which he did acknowledge. ‘This is my fault,’ said Wenger ‘We got a good hiding. You don’t prepare all week to experience that.’

There was only one moment in which Arsenal were truly in the game. It came in the fourth minute when Olivier Giroud was through on goal and his shot forced a smart save from Petr Cech. But within a minute, the tide had turned.

Oxlade-Chamberlain gave the ball to Schurrle, whose swift one-two with Eden Hazard allowed the German to run through Arsenal’s midfield, with no holding player was evident.

Samuel Eto’o still had much to do when he received the ball, but turned Koscielny and delivered a delightful curling shot into the far corner. It was almost his last contribution, limping off shortly after with a hamstring strain.

The second goal was embarrassingly similar, Cazorla the culprit losing out to Matic, who played in Schurrle. Again, the German was given all the space he needed to size up his shot to score. Seven minutes in, the game was up.

Worse was to come. Oscar — yes, Oscar — out-muscled Arsenal’s midfield on 17 minutes and found Hazard, who exchanged passes with Fernando Torres and then unleashed a shot that beat Wojciech Szczesny and tempted a desperate Oxlade-Chamberlain to stick out a hand and tip it round the post.

It might have gone wide but Oxlade Chamberlain it was who had deflected it but it was a fuming Kieran Gibbs who was dismissed, despite his team-mate confessing his guilt to referee Andre Marriner. Hazard converted the penalty.

By then it was just a case of by how much Chelsea wished to improve their goal difference. On 42 minutes, Koscielny completely missed clearance allowing Torres in to cross for Oscar to score at closer range.

There would be no respite in the second half. Rosciky passed across the penalty area to Oscar on 66 minutes for the Brazilian to score from the edge of the box. Still Arsenal kept their high defensive line, on 721 minutes Matic lifted the ball over it for Mohammed Salah to run and finish cooly, his first goal for the club.

By the end, Mourinho conceded that Chelsea might have ‘just a little’ chance of winning the title. Disingenuous as ever, it was at least a step towards to the truth. The race is down to three teams and Chelsea remain favourites.

—Daily mail