Jamie O'Hara labels Chelsea 'soft' while Dean Saunders claims injuries 'are killing' the Blues

Jamie O'Hara and Dean Saunders have criticised Chelsea's performance against Manchester City on Thursday evening, with the Blues left languishing in 10th place after the 1-0 defeat.

The Blues were subjected to a sixth loss of the season, and have now won only once in their last eight games in the Premier League, although Saunders was quick to point out on talkSPORT that they have been ravaged by injuries.

Raheem Sterling and Christian Pulisic were forced off inside 22 minutes at Stamford Bridge in a game that saw several Blues players struggle to make an impact including Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Marc Cucurella.

Saunders initially made allowance for the recent form at Chelsea, claiming: 'I think that injuries are killing them. (Wesley) Fofana, (Ben) Chilwell, Reece James, (N'Golo) Kante, (Armando) Broja, (Edouard) Mendy, (Ruben) Loftus-Cheek, it’s like half of your team is missing.'

But he then accepted that the Blues had been underwhelming of late, adding: 'They have got seven or eight injuries as well, but they’re not playing well.'

Potter suffered a further blow prior to the game as he revealed that Mason Mount had also picked up an injury in training, which ruled him out of Thursday night's encounter at Stamford Bridge.

However, for colleague O'Hara, Chelsea's recent form underlined the fact that the Blues had become 'soft', and were unable to 'hurt' teams.

The former Wolves and Tottenham midfielder said: 'I think that they look soft, they look weak and I think that they don’t hurt you.

'They’re pragmatic and this is not the Chelsea of old that I used to watch when they’d turn up and be horrible and hard to beat, don’t concede and have monsters in the team scoring goals.

'I look at this Chelsea team and think that I fancy playing against them!

'It’s one of the most successful football teams in the last 20 years and they’re sat 10th in the table.'

Against City, the Blues had looked an improved side from the team that laboured to a 1-1 draw away to Nottingham Forest last time out, but they lacked a cutting edge in the first half and their efforts went unrewarded.

But in the second period it was only once youngsters Lewis Hall, Conor Gallagher and Omari Hutchinson were introduced late in the game that the Blues began to play with energy and drive once more.

Although he insisted the side's lengthy list of absentees bore a large part of the responsibility for the club's torrid run, Saunders admitted that injuries are not an excuse that could save Potter at a club with the reputation and profile of Chelsea.

And when O'Hara asked whether 10th place was a good enough position for Chelsea to be in, Saunders replied: 'It’s not acceptable but you’ve asked the question if it’s Graham Potter, is it injuries or whatever. I think that it’s injuries.'

The former Welsh star then added: 'It’s injuries, for me. Once he gets all of his players back fit, we’ll see, but the problem is when you’re at a big club like Chelsea you don’t get time to wait for your injuries to come back. You’re gone.'