Chelsea found seriously lacking...

Seriously guys?

The big story of the weekends premier league action is undoubtedly Sunderlands comprehensive 3-0 win at Stamford Bridge - Chelsea's first home defeat of the season.

Onuoha opens the scoring with a spectacular solo effort

It seems that Chelsea our missing the 'spine' of their team in John Terry, Frank Lampard and Micheal Essien more than could have been expected - but more worryingly for the London club surely has to be the strength of their bench for Sundays game. Lets compare Chelsea's substitutes for Sundays game with another serious title contendor, Arsenal's bench against Everton -

Chelsea

• Turnbull - hardly inspires confidence
• Van Aanholt - who?
• Bruma - who?
• McEachran - oh yeah, him..
• Sala - who?
• Kalou - half decent on his day
• Kakuta - has yet to and may never live up to expectations

Arsenal

• Szczesny - blah
• Eboue - proven (to be unpredictable)
• Gibbs - real signs of quality, the next Ashley Cole?
• Rosicky - quality
• Walcott - quality
• Denilson - half decent on his day
• Van Persie - quality (when fit) (fit when?)

The difference, in quality and options, is in my opinion massive between these two. Obviously injuries have to be taken into account, with Arsenal currently closer out of the two to having a fully fit squad, but looking at the Chelsea bench - the back up players for a team hoping to win the title - and you would be hard pushed to see how any of them could change a game, something that was proved against Sunderland. Excluding Kalou from the list, none of the bench are proven at Premiership level - Gael Kakuta showed the briefest glimpses of form last season and McEachran clearly has the potential to be a good player. Compare this to Arsenal who have two exciting young England internationals in Gibbs and Walcott, alongside creative attacking players such as Rosicky and the slowly coming back from injury Van Persie and it seem that when strength in depth is concerned Arsenal certainly seem to have the upper hand this season.

So how has this happened? 

When you think of the last seasons Chelsea, you think - strength in depth. Cliche I know, but true. Having real quality in the likes of Michael Ballack, Deco, Joe Cole, Richardo Carvalho and Juliano Belleti as essentially squad players was in my opinion the key to their success in the league. The above players make up almost half a starting eleven, of a quality that could beat any team in the league - so when injuries did come, as they inevitably do, the options where there. It has been commented on many times that teams need two strong starting elevens to challenge for the Premier League title, Chelsea had this, now they do not. I realise that this was not necessarily sustainable, players like Ballack are always going to be looking for regular first team football, but the question is did Chelsea do enough to replace these players?

No, they did not. With all this quality leaving in the summer, Chelsea filled the gaps with only two new purchases of any weight, Ramires and Benayoun. One unproven in the premiership and the other an arguable downgrade from Joe Cole who went in the other direction. Not even close to filling the gaps.

So do Chelsea have the strength in depth to win the title? As it stands, no. By failing to replace quality players that were essential to an ageing squad that will undoubtedly pick up injuries to key players, they have potentially left themselves in a very difficult position, which was highlighted on Sunday. 

Lets just hope that Abramovich is ready to get his wallet out in January and bolster his squad, because sensationalism aside, there could be real problems at the bridge.