by Our Sports Desk

Jose Mourinho said yesterday that Chelsea are the most abused team in the Premier League merely because of their success.

Research by anti-discrimination body Kick It Out showed the Blues were the Premier League club to receive the highest volume of discriminatory posts with 20,000, followed by Liverpool (19,000), Arsenal (12,000), Manchester United (11,000) and Manchester City (11,000).

Chelsea are seven points clear with seven games to play ahead of today’s crunch match against Manchester United, who are eight points behind in third, having led from the opening round of fixtures.

“I think because we are boring,” said Mourinho.

“Top of the league since day one. It’s something in this country people don’t like.”

The research also showed that Liverpool striker Mario Balotelli is the most abused player in the league and that more than 52 per cent of the 8,000 abusive posts directed at the Italian were racist.

Arsenal striker Danny Welbeck was second with 1,700 (50 per cent of the abusive posts directed at him were racist), followed by Liverpool’s Daniel Sturridge, with 1,600.

Welbeck was the subject of racist abuse on Twitter after Arsenal’s victory over United in the FA Cup back, in which he scored the winner and celebrated against his former club.

One teenager was arrested and cautioned by the police with a warning.

Kick It Out director Roisin Wood said: “It is really shocking. We knew there was an issue but even we were shocked by how many the players have received.

“For one player to have received over 8,000 abusive messages is phenomenally awful.

“You cannot accept players getting that level of abuse so we want to bring this expert group together to see how we can address this.”

Twitter was the most common platform for abuse with 88 per cent of messages coming in the form of tweets.