Can Anyone Live with Chelsea's Attacking Might After Swansea City Thumping?

Just when Jose Mourinho needed a performance from his players he got one, as Chelsea ran amok at the Liberty Stadium, thrashing Swansea City 5-0.

There's been too much talk of campaigns against his club recently, and now the agenda has changed on the back of this result—we're finally talking about football again.

Mourinho's pre-match press conference ahead of this game was tiresome in the extreme, the same questions being repeated and rephrased about referees and his impending FA charge.

If the media had lost sight, Chelsea players clearly hadn't.

Forget politics and soundbites, it's performances like this that make watching the Premier League so enjoyable.

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Everything else is an afterthought.

Chelsea were mesmerising at times, clinical when they needed to be.

Swansea endured one of their worst displays in a long while, and unfortunately for them, it came against the one team you do not want to make errors against.

At their lethal best, Chelsea look unstoppable in attack. This game has proved it, and the manager rightly had a smile on his face come full-time.

"It was the perfect game," Mourinho said. "Everything went in our direction. To score in the first minute immediately gives a different game.

"To be 4-0 up at half-time is not game over, especially in the Premier League, but it’s a good situation to control it, and we did that in the second half."

The scoresheet will tell us Diego Costa and Oscar were the stars of the show. The reality is that it was all eleven players Mourinho fielded.

To a man, Chelsea were magnificent.

The scoreline didn't flatter them and reflected what was arguably their most complete team performance in a long while.

"I prefer to say the team played very well," Mourinho reflected when asked to elaborate on the influence of Costa and Oscar.

"The team was solid defensively and in attack obviously they took chances and were aggressive in the way they thought. They had ambition."

Ambition is one thing, the ability to not only act upon it, but also make the most of the chances that quality will create is another.

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Swansea couldn't live with Chelsea. Eight places separate them in the Premier League, but in reality the gap is far greater.

Indeed, on this evidence, not many teams can combat the might of Chelsea in full flow.

Garry Monk's side were the architects of their own downfall for the opening goal and Chelsea's third, yet Costa's first—sandwiched between them—was sublime.

It was a great team move that left the home side's defence chasing shadows.

"It’s the way we play. I was on the bench saying it was a similar goal in terms of principles to the one we scored against Burnley in the first game of the season," Mourinho said.

Coming on the back of a hectic Christmas schedule that had seen them drop points, that all important air of authority about this Chelsea team had taken a knock.

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They were humbled by Tottenham Hotspur on New Year's Day, and had their opponents been more clinical, they could have suffered an upset against Newcastle United at Stamford Bridge last weekend.

Beating Swansea the way they did marked Chelsea's return to form. Ahead of a difficult midweek trip to Anfield for the Capital One Cup semi-final with Liverpool, it was just the boost they needed.

Of course, Chelsea were afforded the luxury of playing 24 hours before Manchester City face Arsenal on Sunday. Mourinho had said on Friday that factor was of little advantage to his team.

"The big boys do not feel that kind of pressure," he said, suggesting Chelsea's title rivals will be nonplussed by the fixture schedule.

Five goals and thrilling performance later, he may have to rethink that opinion.

Garry Hayes is Bleacher Report's lead Chelsea correspondent. All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Follow him on Twitter @garryhayes