Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho was not surprised at Chelsea's 3-0 defeat at West Brom on Monday night, and went so far as to blame his side's Premier League challengers for allowing his side to win the title so easily.
The loss was Chelsea's third of the season and ended their 16-match unbeaten run in the league ahead of their final match of at home to Sunderland on Sunday.
Mourinho applauded the club's supporters after the final whistle but blamed winning the title so early for the result.
"I can't say [the result] is a big surprise for me," the manager said. "I know my players, I know myself and I know the nature of the game, I know what normally happens when a team is champion with matches in hand to play.
"This is just an example. When we're the champions early it's difficult to keep the motivation high.
"We've got lots of injuries, we've also players that we are protecting.
"For not to have any risk, the motivation is not so high and the intensity is not so high and when you lose that intensity of competition, it's difficult to complete at the highest level."
Mourinho said his team would have performed differently had the other contenders for the Premier League title presented a greater challenge.
"The ideal scenario is to be champions and don't play again, go home have holidays and don't play again," he said. "When you have three more matches to play it can happen what happened to Bayern Munich, lose three in three. It can happen to us, one point in two matches.
"I don't blame the players, to blame the players I have to blame myself because I am not different than them.
"Let's blame the players a little bit, let's blame myself, let's blame the top contenders for the title because they were not good enough to fight with us until the end.
"If today we need this game to be champions, I'm not saying we'll win but I'm saying we would compete at a higher level to win."
Information from Press Association was used in this report.