No, the Monday Moan is not returning. Yet.

Twitter/Chelsea FC

Faithful readers will recall, two years ago, how my Mondays became typified by a weekly rant about Chelsea, as their Premier League title defence - and their season - went rapidly down the toilet. I'll spare you the history, but yesterday, I studiously went about avoiding a reinstigation of the 'Monday Moan' from the 2015-2016 football season. This was more out of blind hope that Chelsea's defeat to Arsenal in the Community Shield (again) and implosive defeat on Saturday at home to Burnley weren't harbingers of a carbon copy of what happened exactly two years ago.

As I wrote last week, following the Wembley game, the signs were uncannily there. All that the Burnley match lacked was Antonio Conte replicating José Mourinho's Basil Fawlty-style touchline meltdown. In fact, Conte was markedly unimpassioned at Stamford Bridge on Saturday: very little of the cardiac-endangering histrionics and constant barking of unintelligible instructions. For much of the game he just stood there, only moving out of his technical area to attempt a remonstration with the fourth official after another of referee Craig Pawson's pedantic decisions, only to be held back by Carlo Cudicini and prevent a bad afternoon getting worse.

To briefly return to the 2015 season, part of Chelsea's spiralling malaise was the result of Mourinho's demeanour. Unhappy at the progress of inter-season signings, frustrated by his own decision to start pre-season training late and, despite signing a lucrative new deal days before the season opener, letting rip at club doctor Eva Carneiro as she ran onto the field to attend to Eden Hazard, publicly demoting her days later. The mood in camp visibly suffered, and Mourinho was gone by December.

Conte has been installed by the bookies as favourite to be the first Premier League managerial casualty of the season. This, though, is not new: he was widely tipped for the sack a year ago as Chelsea's put in a confounding opening spell (2-1 wins over West Ham and Watford, a comprehensive 3-0 win over Burnley, then a 2-2 draw with Swansea followed by the home defeat to Liverpool and the 3-0 demolition by Arsenal that saw Conte switch to the wing-back system that would sustain them to the title). We mustn't, then, be rash. Saturday's loss to Burnley can be seen as an opening day blip, and indeed, despite the 2-3 scoreline and dismissal of both Gary Cahill and Cesc Fàbregas, the manner with which Chelsea fought back in the second half gave the home fans much to feel better about, especially Alvaro Morata's debut goal.

What happens next - and that includes Sunday's return to Wembley to play Spurs - will be down to Conte. And here is where the worry is. He is a very different personality to Mourinho, who maintains a brooding, simmering sense of victimhood even when he's done nothing wrong. Conte, on the other hand, while not exactly effervescent, is a highly personable individual, until he pulls on the tracksuit and - normally - leaps about the touchline as if someone is repeatedly jabbing him with a cattle prod. But his somnolent stance against Burnley spoke volumes. Whether his team selection was a message to the Chelsea board (and Roman Abramovich in particular) or not, the game's outcome should have been the clear instruction to bring in the reinforcements Conte has been demanding for months. Ahead of the Tottenham game, Chelsea are without Cahill and Fàbregas (suspension), Hazard and new central midfielder Tiemoue Bakayoko, as well as possibly Pedro (injury), Diego Costa (extended hissy fit back in Brazil), and having sold Nemanja Matic, Nathaniel Chalobah and Nathan Aké, and loaned out Ruben Loftus-Cheek, amongst several others, will have little-to-no first team experience available to fill the gaps.

According to The Times today, Conte remains at odds with the club over his transfer targets as many of them are older players with limited resale value. And yet most come with a hefty price tag because a) it's Chelsea and b) they're getting increasingly desperate. On top of that, the club hierarchy wants players with a long-term career path, whereas Conte is only looking at the short term of competing in this season's domestic competitions as well as the Champions League. All of a sudden his two-year contract - albeit on improved financial terms - is starting to look somewhat finite.

Along with death and taxes, the only other constant we have to contend with is that Chelsea managers are not forever. We learned that in the Ken Bates era, and thus it has proven relentlessly under Abramovich. The thing is, can we Chelsea fans put up with the constant upheaval when we're also benefiting from the trophies that do still seem to come? Longevity can be seen as both a blessing and a curse. Manchester United built a dynasty with Sir Alex Ferguson, but also paid the price of not making a change at a time when the squad itself was needing a refresh. And, then, there's Arsenal, with the stubborn Wenger hanging on and still delivering some semblance of success.

I'm writing as if Conte has already been sacked...or walked. I don't wish him to, and one defeat on the opening day doesn't condemn an entire season. But with new players not materialising, and a long season ahead - including the unpredictable intensity of the Champions League - you could hardly say that Chelsea are marching forwards with any strength. True, there are bright spots: Morata's pull-downs and goal on Saturday demonstrated a class improvement over the ineffective Batshuayi; Antonio Rudiger looks a quality buy to strengthen the defence while Andreas Christensen looked a more assured central defender compared with the loaned-out Kurt Zuma. But with talk still of Chelsea bringing in Virgil van Dijk from Southampton, Danny Drinkwater from Leicester and even Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain from Arsenal, not to mention long-term targets like Alex Sandro from Juventus, there is still an overwhelming sense of work-in-progress with Chelsea, one league game in, and just over two weeks of the transfer window left. It'll be interesting to see what the squad looks like as that window slams shut. Not to mention who will be in charge of it...