Inside the entrance to Chelsea’s training ground there is a framed photograph, going back to the evening of 19 May 2012, of the G8 summit at Camp David as the world’s leaders interrupted their talks on Syria, at the request of Angela Merkel, to gather round a television in the Laurel Lodge because she had just been told the Champions League final had gone to a penalty shootout.

It is the kind of photo one imagines would take pride of place in José Mourinho’s office, along with the two life-sized cardboard cutouts of himself, the Mourinho dolls, the Mourinho library and everything else that gives it the feel of a personal shrine. David Cameron’s sleeves are rolled up and his arms are in the air. Barack Obama’s mouth is open, his eyes filled with wonder. To his left, Merkel is on her feet, gripping the brown leather seat in front of her. Didier Drogba has just rolled the decisive penalty into Bayern Munich’s net and, in that precise moment, rumour has it Germany’s chancellor was heard to say “scheisse” under her breath.

If ever a Champions League was won by a team’s sense of togetherness, that was the one. Chelsea were famed for it. They knew sometimes they might not have the same skill as their opponents but they made up for it with brotherly spirit. They dug in. And when Mourinho was honoured at a dinner at the Savoy a couple of years ago Frank Lampard, the guest speaker, mentioned that night. “That all started from him,” Lampard said. “He might not have been there, but that spirit came down from him.” Mourinho’s players would do anything for him and he, in turn, did everything for them. That bond seemed impenetrable.

The contrast with Monday’s defeat against Leicester City could hardly be starker at a time when Chelsea are a point above the relegation zone and it is increasingly difficult to think that Mourinho can possibly survive much longer. Mourinho, once such a fierce protector of his own, spoke about his team in a way he never has done before. He was the man who coined the phrase about “parking the bus”. Here, he threw his players under one and even ignoring, for one moment, his wild assertion that his work had been “betrayed”, his choice of language must have left Roman Abramovich wondering whether the respect between manager and players was still there.

Their latest ordeal, in what is rapidly becoming the most abject title defence of modern times, ended in such a way it would have been no surprise to find a short, clipped statement published on Chelsea’s website first thing in the morning. Perhaps Mourinho half-expected it, too, given that much of what he said – the gist of it being blame them, not me – felt like he was getting his retaliation in first.

“Last season I did phenomenal work,” Mourinho duly informed us. “Sometimes I find myself thinking that last season I did such an amazing job I brought players to a level that is not their level and, if this is true, I brought them to such a level where this season they couldn’t keep the super motivation to be leaders and champions. That is one possibility.

“Another is that this season we started so badly, individually and collectively, that in the Premier League maybe the sequence of bad results brought the players to a position in the table where they are not scared of relegation, because they don’t feel they belong to the relegation battle, but where they don’t have the motivation to be champions any more, or to be top two or top four. So I think, from both possibilities, one of them can be real.”

His line about being “betrayed” certainly seemed strategic given that Mourinho is as media savvy as they come and repeated it in virtually every interview. Another manager might have been “let down” or “frustrated” but Mourinho knows his ability to shape the headlines.

It was, however, entirely the wrong word. Losing a player inside the penalty area is never a betrayal of the manager, especially when the opponent operates at the speed of Jamie Vardy. Bad defending? Yes. Letting down the team? Possibly, if you want to be harsh. But a betrayal? The dictionary definition of the word is to “expose (one’s country, a group, or a person) to danger by treacherously giving information to an enemy”.

The most relevant question now is how the players react to that kind of allegation because there is plainly a risk here that Mourinho loses what is essential for anyone in his position: the trust of the dressing room. How must John Terry feel, for instance, after everything he has given for Chelsea to be accused of betraying the manager? Does Kurt Zouma, at an age where there will inevitably be momentary lapses of concentration, deserve accusations of treachery because he lost Vardy for a split-second before the first goal? And what do the players think of Mourinho absolving himself from even the smallest portion of blame?

It is rare these days to hear a manager, any manager, turning on his own players in front of the cameras. Yet it was not all about that one word. “I don’t think in this moment they can feel they are top players or they can feel they are superstars,” Mourinho volunteered. “They have to look at the Leicester boys and feel these are the stars, these are the top players. They have to look to Sunderland and Watford [Chelsea’s next two opponents] and say: ‘We are at the same level, I am not the superstar, I am not the player of the season. I am not the world champion, I am not the Premier League champion. At this moment, I am at your level.’”

See what he did there? It was subtle but the only players who could be identified personally from that critique are Eden Hazard, Chelsea’s player of the year, and Cesc Fàbregas, a World Cup winner with Spain.

Cesc Fábregas has faced criticism from José Mourinho this season and has spent some time on the Chelsea substitutes’ bench. Photograph: Catherine Ivill/Getty Images

Fàbregas was on the team coach so quickly after the final whistle it was difficult to know if he had even dipped his toes in the showers. As for Hazard, Mourinho’s sniping was done in that read-between-the-lines way. Mourinho had the chance to say that the Belgian would have desperately wanted to stay on but he chose instead to mention, more than once, how quickly Hazard had decided he was injured. Hazard, he said, had made the decision in 10 seconds. “It must be a serious injury,” he said, not sounding like he believed it for a moment.

Around the pointed little barbs, Mourinho did actually make some relevant points. Costa had so little confidence, he said, he was no longer trying to get into the penalty area, which was leaving them short of presence in attack. “The lack of confidence is bringing him to other areas. When he’s in front of the goal he is not scoring, so he is not fresh-minded and critical like he was last season, and he’s leaving the areas. His movements are almost all from the centre to the sides, coming deep.” He was right but the thought did occur that speaking about it that way – unsympathetic, resigned, without a single word to suggest he backed his player to put it right – might not be the best way to repair the damage.

The point is this should be a time when Mourinho is trying to convince the people above him that the old togetherness is still there. It should be a united front, whatever issues there may be behind the scenes. Instead he has made it clearer than ever that those days have gone and that, if the guillotine does fall, he wants everyone to know he is actually the victim here. The irony is that there are players in Chelsea’s dressing room who are genuinely entitled to feel betrayed.