As we all watched Chelsea cruise to another ruthless, well-worked, high-performance victory, neutral fans' hearts may have sunk a little. It seemed so damned inevitable didn't it? It seemed all too easy.

Already, the 'why don't we just award the title to Chelsea now?' brigade are howling at the moon. They seem unstoppable. With everyone else dropping points and turning in dodgy performances, Chelsea just steam on regardless. They are an awesome winning machine. A little joyless sometimes but blimey mother, they know how to win games.

It's always like this when a club starts a season with a long string of wins and is undefeated for a couple of months. We all think, right that's it then, game over, they're just too good.

Yes, Chelsea looks unbeatable. At present, it's hard to see them losing a game, but history tells us this is more than likely to be a passing delusion. Oddly enough, a great start to a season often leads to disappointment come May.

In the 1985-86 season Manchester United won their first ten games and looked unbeatable under Big Ron. But they didn't win the league, finishing 4th and 12 points adrift of Liverpool.

In the 1978-79 season Nottingham Forest didn't lose a game until early December, but failed to beat Liverpool to the title, ending eight points behind despite losing one less game.

In 1990-91 we all thought Liverpool were cruising to another title when they won their opening eight games and didn't suffer a loss until early December. But it was Arsenal who won the league by six clear points.

Newcastle United opened the 1994-95 season with a 17-game unbeaten run but ended up in just sixth position, just like Arsenal in 2004-05. They didn't lose until the October 24 game against Manchester United and went on to lose the title to Chelsea by 12 points.

In many cases, the worst thing that can happen to a club with title ambitions is to have a perfect start. It seems to put more pressure on a team, so that when they do suffer a setback they feel disproportionately deflated. With their perfect record soiled, they find it hard to recover.

After that amazing start to the 1985-86 season, Man Utd only won another 10 in the next 32. After Newcastle's great start, once defeated, they went on a 'two wins in 16 games' run.

Having a perfect start is a lot to live up to - in fact, it's clearly impossible to live up to. So in that sense Chelsea haven't got anything better to look forward to. 100% is as good as it gets. All they can do is maintain the results. Perhaps this creates a highly-pressured mentality when you know that the only change to your status will be to perform worse. Whereas when you start by losing one and drawing a couple, you know you can improve. It gives you something to strive for.

There are exceptions to this rule of course. Arsenal's invincible season is the obvious one. However, perhaps karma has had its way with Arsenal as a consequence because once that 49-game run ended, Arsenal have never won the league again.Has that incredible unbeaten run imposed an unmatchable standard for the club? Does it play on the subconscious of the players that they will never match or better that extraordinary performance?

It's all speculation but say Arsenal had won the title that season and lost two games along the way, that side wouldn't cast quite so big a shadow over subsequent squads. Fans wouldn't have an almost holy side to compare to the current lot. Everyone looks poorer when compared to the unbeatable.

Manchester United have a reputation as slow starters who come good after Xmas and given their huge domination of the Premier League, it would suggest that this is clearly the best way to win a title. It's like a distance runner who goes into the last lap on the shoulder of the front runner. They let them do all the work, pace themselves and then sprint past to win.

It's an odd psychology being a front runner. Having won all your opening games, is the pressure to continue to do so greater than the pressure on those that have to improve?

All of United's last three title wins have seen them lose two more games than the runner-up but they have been victorious by drawing less. This is surely the best illustration of the title-winning psychology and proves that losing a few games isn't the end of the world; indeed it may be essential to keep the club on its toes and fighting.

As it stands Chelsea look imperious but ironically, history suggests it may be the very strength of their early-season form that actually prevents them from taking the title in May. The finest season in their history was that 2004-05 one under Mourinho. They won the league effortlessly and lost just one game. However, they had a couple of draws in the first seven games and lost their 10th league game to Manchester City; a great but imperfect start.

So with that in mind maybe Chelsea's rivals should be worried more if they draw a couple and lose one in coming months than if they keep on winning. Football can be a perverse game.