Is this all just a little bit of history repeating?

David Price/Arsenal FC via Getty Images

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Regular readers of my previous blog, What Would David Bowie Do? (retired on compassionate grounds in January), may have grown used to a recurring feature during the final third of last year: the Monday Moan.

This wasn't, I hasten to point out, some general-purpose weekly soapbox, but a cathartic outpouring in response to the increasing frustration of watching Chelsea defend their 2014-2015 Premier League title. Because, as you might remember, despite winning the thing on May 3 with three games to spare (and having effectively taken the title by the previous Christmas), just three months later they played Swansea at Stamford Bridge, and things went steadily downhill from there until José Mourinho ran out of excuses at the same time as he ran out of chances to turn it around. By the time he went "by mutual consent" on December 17, Chelsea were relegation zone-threatening deadbeats. Enter, once more, Uncle Guus to steady the ship. At that point I lost interest. Not in the club or its results - some things are ingrained genetically - but in caring.

Chelsea's worryingly demonstrable decline before our very eyes in a matter of weeks unmasked the truth that the club really wasn't equipped to move itself on, to progress and evolve. Mourinho was as stubborn as ever in sticking to his PowerPoint presentations and the opposition sussed Chelsea out in the knowledge that there was no Plan B. The club itself had abjectly failed to come up with the one or two marquee signings who can sometimes make all the difference. Thus, a squad already demoralised by the way their team doctor had been treated publicly by the coach descended into self-disbelief, lapsed concentration, capitulation and either an inability to kill games off on their own terms, or worse, prevent being killed off themselves.

So what has changed this season, and why the resurrection of the Monday Moan, if only for just this week? Because nothing has changed. Saturday's performance against Arsenal - a fixture in which Chelsea had been able to frustrate the opponent quite satisfyingly for seveal seasons - as well as that against Liverpool two Fridays before, demonstrated a team still lacking the mental strength to turn things around when under duress. That a club should look all at sea without a 35-year-old player is the biggest worry, given that they were actually prepared to lose John Terry permanently until the final hours of last season when, presumably, Chelsea capitulated and gave him a new contract.

But with JT out injured, it is frightening to see how disorganised at the back and toothless at the front they become. Branislav Ivanovic - no doubt a loyal servant - is still incredibly vulnerable (as he was a year ago), César Azpilicueta is still only a makeshift solution at left back (as he was a year ago), Gary Cahill looks clueless (as he has been since returning from England's disaster against Iceland...and indeed, as he was a year ago...) and David Luiz is... Well, let's just say that all the concerns about David Luiz have so far been borne out. Not for nothing, one wag on Twitter wrote on Saturday: "Gary Cahill and David Luiz is the worst central defence partnership since...Gary Cahill and David Luiz". Thibaut Courtois has, since usurping Petr Čech looked less convincing, and his clear angling last week for a move back to Madrid at the end of his current Chelsea contract will not - and has not - endear him to fans, especially those who haven't exactly seen an organising colossus in the Belgian. Personally, I think Asmir Begovic is as good and without the hype.

In front of this culendar of a defence should be sitting at least one glimmer of hope, N'Golo Kante. One of two summer signings to get excited about (Michy Batshuayi being the other), Kante has yet to fully demonstrate why his transfer from Leicester was the wrench Claudio Ranieri professed it to be. It is all about systems, of course, but with Antonio Conte not yet confident enough to adopt the preferred formations he honed in Italy, Kante has been shoe-horned into a Chelsea team which is, to all intents and purposes, that which kicked off the 2014-15 season, albeit with Nemanja Matic looking as ineffective now as he was highly effective then.

Defence is the obvious pain-point for Chelsea. Without Terry they look disorganised and frightened to get stuck in, and Cahill in particular, lost. Courtois' lack of communication doesn't help, either. Down the front, things are somewhat better, but only just. If Pedro being brought on is the solution to replace Hazard or Willian, then you know Chelsea are in trouble (though Hazard's lack of tracking back against Walcott on Saturday cruelly exposed Aspiliqueta). And Diego Costa's relentless pursuit of free kicks and yellow cards for opponents from disinterested referees is just boring and tiring to watch. Please, Antonio, get Diego goal-hanging and work on the supply. He's at least prepared to toil, so the goals will come.

Much of this angst is the result of things that could have been corrected. For two summer transfer windows in a row, Marina Granovskaia and Michael Emenalo have failed to deliver the transfer targets of either Mourinho and Conte (Kante was a make-do subsitute for players in Italy, while Luiz was an outright panic buy), and yet somehow the club can afford to loan out 39 - 39!!! - players deemed surplus to immediate needs. Presumably they know what they're doing: it's just a pity no one at Chelsea Football Club is prepared to talk to the media about what they're doing, so that the press, and therefore us fans (especially those paying to watch the team) can understand the philosophy and, if one exists, the strategy.

Antonio Conte, being the new boy and, notably, not Mourinho, has kept a tight lip over the inadequacies of what he's got to play with, but it's pretty clear what they are. Watching vast swathes of Chelsea defensive territory opened up by Arsenal was painful enough, but then watching Keystone Cops-like moments in the goalmouth against Leicester City and Liverpool was even worse. Whatever Conte does now, he needs to be decisive, and perhaps more than he's been. Chelsea are at present a system looking for a team. OK, so the players Conte wanted aren't there, but on paper, at least, this is a squad that should be putting up a fight, at least more than they did in that squalid 90 minutes on Saturday against Arsenal.