The heat in the Chelsea kitchen is rising once again and it could become too suffocating for Jose Mourinho to continue if his team go out of the Champions League this week.

The Londoners need only a home draw against Mourinho’s old club Porto on Wednesday to reach the knockout stages and, if recent Stamford Bridge displays are anything to go by, the fans face a jittery 90 minutes perched on the edges of their seats.

Remarkably, the Premier League champions have already lost 11 games in all competitions this season, including four at home, and it seems almost inconceivable that their outspoken manager could survive yet another defeat against Porto.

Mourinho has tried every trick in the book in a bid to cajole an improvement from his squad, even briefly leaving out talismen John Terry and Eden Hazard, without any lasting effect.

Midfield linchpin Nemanja Matic summed up the immediate task facing his team mates and the coaching staff.

“We are in a difficult moment and it is going to be hard to come back from this but we have to try to resolve this situation,” the Serbian international told Chelsea TV.

“I think we didn’t deserve to lose the game,” said Matic after Saturday’s 1-0 home defeat by fellow strugglers Bournemouth, “but when you don’t score a goal, you also don’t deserve to win”.

Chelsea had offered false hopes of a revival before the game against Bournemouth, registering three straight clean sheets with a 1-0 home victory against Norwich City, a 4-0 win at Maccabi Tel Aviv and a 0-0 draw at high-flying Tottenham Hotspur.

The main problem this season, though, has been a complete lack of firepower in attack.