Sarri seems to be the hardest word - part 2

Since my post on Monday, in which I tried to examine the wisdom of Maurizio Sarri questioning the mentality and motivation of his players, the Chelsea head coach has continued in this vein by questioning the leadership skills of Eden Hazard.

"I don't know," the Italian said at yesterday's press conference ahead of tonight's EFL Trophy semi-final second leg at Stamford Bridge. "At this moment he is more an individual player than a leader. He’s very important of course as he’s a great player and he can always win the match in two minutes, sometimes in one minute, but at the moment he’s not a leader. He’s a great player, one of the best in the world."

Now, with Hazard arguably one of the best players in the world, if not at least in England, and with speculation about him moving to Real Madrid continuing to swirl about like the snow flurries outside my window, you might say that Sarri is taking an even bigger risk by drawing any negative focus on the Belgian. Clearly, though, Sarri knew what he was saying, why he was saying it, and when he was saying it.

"I think we need to react on the pitch, all the rest is nothing," Sarri had said earlier in the presser when asked about how his team will respond to his criticism of the team after their dismal defeat to Arsenal last weekend. "We need to discuss our problems. The first step, if I want to improve, is to accept the mistake otherwise its impossible to improve. It’s a normal discussion for improving." But, in talking about the kind of reaction he's looking for, the question of leadership emerged. "It depends on the atmosphere around the players," he said, "but we have some players with the characteristics to be a leader, such as Azpilicueta, David Luiz, so I think they can help all the other players to get the right mentality."

Hazard can be a confounding figure. There's no doubting his brilliance, but sometimes it can be dimmed, either because his box of tricks gets stifled by defenders, or by the player himself dropping down a couple of gears. Sarri, and Antonio Conte before him, should share some of the blame in this. Playing Hazard as a false 9 is clearly not what the player wants to do and, equally clearly, when he's played as a target man when there's little dropping in for him, it would be understandable for Hazard to get frustrated. But is that necessarily a leadership issue? When Chelsea had a spine of leadership - Čech, Terry, Lampard, Drogba - the authority and effect was tangible. Today, it's patchy. Azpiliqueta is a great defender and a worthy captain, but he's no John Terry. Likewise, David Luiz has passion aplenty, and when he's not making silly mistakes, evokes some of the blood-and-thunder JT used to exude. But there is something lacking throughout the current team. Jorginho was brought to Chelsea by Sarri to act as his lieutenant, but his influence in the holding role has faded of late, and with the manager stubbornly refusing to rotate his No.5 (ideally by playing Kante there), the midfielder has offered little in the way of being the engine room.

So what, then, is Sarri's expectations of Hazard? And why has he chosen to rattle the Belgian's status just as Chelsea are hoping he will shun Real Madrid's interest and sign a new contract? Obviously, reverse psychology can't be ruled out, but again, it seems an extremely high-risk strategy where Hazard, precariously poised over a new deal, is concerned. Perhaps, though, "leadership" was the wrong choice of words. Perhaps Sarri was getting at something else. Earlier this week Hazard made an alarming admission to France Football magazine, saying that he's been a source of frustration to his past managers...and will continue to be so. "I didn’t just frustrate Conte," he said. "In my career, I’ve frustrated all my coaches. And with Sarri, once again, I frustrate him. They think that I need to mark more, do more of this and more of that. And the next coach that I have, I’ll frustrate him as well."

Hazard is, however, a consummate wind-up. His ambiguity over his Chelsea future has been conveyed playfully, with a trademark twinkle in his eye suggesting that the witty and bright Hazard is just messing around half the time. Probably only he and his agent knows where he wants to go, or even where he will actually end up. Which brings me to tonight's game against Tottenham. If Sarri wants to get a reaction out of any one player with this fixture, Hazard is probably the player to poke with a sharp stick.

Hazard, you’ll remember, was in the thick of it two years ago when Spurs blew their Premier League title chances at Stamford Bridge. "We don't want Tottenham to win the Premier League; the fans, the club and the players," he said before the ill-tempered 2-2 draw in May 2016 that ended Spurs' hopes of preventing Leicester City from winning the league title. Hazard's stunning 83rd-minute strike brought the scores level...and led to temperatures boiling over. So, with Sarri looking for a reaction, both from the Arsenal defeat but even from the painful 3-1 loss to Spurs in the league in November, a defeat that ended Chelsea's 12-game unbeaten run, it's possible that the Italian coach is engaging in some mind games with his mercurial Belgian.

Quite how Hazard will react remains to be seen. If, tonight, Hazard is again played out of preferred position in the false 9 role, he may well continue to go through the motions. Without the newly-signed loanee Gonzalo Higuain, and with Álvaro Morata seemingly on his way back to Spain, if Sarri chose to start with Olivier Giroud up front and have Hazard play in from the left, his preferred position, he might just get the positive response he's looking for. But, as has now been well documented, Sarri's reluctance to try something as adventurous might mean that, until Higuain can be integrated, Hazard might stay, unhappily, in the middle, and now with his own coach questioning his seniority, too. Not good, really...

It’s a Thursday thing

Thursdays. Not quite Friday, but better than Wednesday and, thankfully, not Monday. In my childhood it was the day of Top Of The Pops and Cubs. In adulthood it is now chiefly known as the last day of the week in the office before the now-obligatory "working from home" Friday, a phenomenon so extreme that black cab drivers have stopped coming into London on the final workday due to a lack of business.

In the football world Thursdays have become a Championship day ranking behind the Premier League of Tuesdays and Wednesdays, a Lidl day, if you will, to two Waitrose days. OK, painful analogies, I know, but essentially, there is a clear gulf in class between the Champions League and the Europa League fixtures of a Thursday evening, arguably pound shop European football and an unnecessary distraction as clubs are forced to rearrange their domestic games to Sundays while still having to deal with travelling insane distances to get home. As a case in point, Chelsea's return flight from last night's opening Europa League tie against PAOK in Thessaloniki was delayed by weather, denying Maurizio Sarri's side rest and vital training before Sunday's visit to West Ham.

At some point this season Chelsea will have to visit Videoton, which isn’t a dodgy 80s David Cronenberg film starring Debbie Harry but, in fact, MOL Vidi FC, also known as Vidi, a Hungarian club based in Székesfehérvár. Wherever that is. Likewise, they will also have to visit BATE, better known as FC BATE Borisov, a Belarusian club from Barysaw. None of these - including last night's opponents, the Greek side PAOK - are glamour teams, or particularly glamourous locations with which to visit. Sorry, PAOK, Vidi and BATE, but face facts.

Elitist as it sounds, but when your European adventures have taken you to Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, Paris and Munich in the 14 years since Roman Abramovich's largesse transformed Chelsea into proper European players, it's slightly galling to be in the Europa League. Fans know this. It's why, as Chelsea failed to finish last season in the Premier League's top four, home and opposition supporters willingly engaged in banter about Thursday evening social plans. Chelsea know that the "Thursday gig" lacks the appeal of the senior European fixtures on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, pricing tickets for the group-stage Europa fixtures at just £20 to drum up a crowd (which, thankfully, they will do, as mugs like me will be at Stamford Bridge on 4 October for the visit of Videoton, rather than at home throwing things at the TV because BT Sport have got Glenn Hoddle in the studio again).

Home games not withstanding, it's the away fixtures that provide the bigger challenge, both for the club and its supporters. None of Chelsea's group opponents are based in particularly easy-to-reach cities, so my hat goes off to those loyal followers who will take off two days from work and shell out a considerable amount of money booking flights and trains at a relatively late stage to go and watch 90 minutes of football in places where language, hostile home fans and provocative policing will make life less than comfortable. But that is the fun of following your club into Europe.

Picture: Twitter/Chelsea FC

For Maurizio Sarri, the headache is one of making decisions on players. For last night's visit to Greece, Eden Hazard, David Luiz and Mateo Kovacic were left back in London, a deliberate choice to rest Hazard, in particular, ahead of this Sunday's Premier League game at the London Stadium. On paper, however, the line-up Sarri fielded against PAOK was pretty strong, with a fired-up Willian made captain for the night, and who subsequently put in a captain's performance, scoring the one goal that separated the sides. The Europa League is, for Chelsea and Sarri alike, an adjustment: "For an English team the Europa League is a very difficult competition," the Italian said after last night's game. "Because in Italy, if I play in Greece on Thursday I can ask to play on Monday night, but I have to play again in 63 hours, on Sunday morning." He's not sure how this will affect team selections in the future. "It is not a big problem now because we have played only six matches but in the future it may be a problem. I hope to qualify before the last one or two matches of the group stage.

One of Sarri's undoubted problems is and will continue to be striker Alvaro Morata who, despite a lot of creditable toil last night, wasted countless chances in front of goal. "Morata has to gain confidence with one, two or three goals," said Sarri. "I am not able to give him confidence. In this game he had three or four opportunities, he was unlucky. I hope in the future I can try to help him, but the confidence comes only with goals. But I have to say also that for the first time this season he was very ready in the box. He was on the ball, he was active."

Morata not withstanding, Chelsea's win at the Toumba Stadium yesterday evening meant that Sarri had recorded six wins out of his first six competitive games as Chelsea coach. He has a right to be pleased, but also to have concerns: "We were in control of the match for 90 minutes. We had a lot of opportunities, we missed them, so I am really happy with the three points and the performance but not the result, because when it is time to kill the match, we have to kill the match." That will have to determine team selection - and ensuring players remain fit. Unlike Sarri's predecessor, Antonio Conte, the latest Italian in the Chelsea dugout should have no complaints about squad depth. Last night he could even afford to leave Gary Cahill, with all his European competition experience, on the bench.

Picture: Chelsea FC

A tougher challenge will be deciding when to play and when to rest Hazard. Convincing him to stay at the club and not move to Real Madrid was, effectively, a brand new signing. The glee with which the Belgian skipped through Cardiff last Saturday, scoring a hat trick in the process, was a joy to behold. Tougher opposition awaits Chelsea in Europe after the group stage - which they should clear - is over, but by then the FA Cup and League Cup will, in theory, be providing further distraction. Conte made these commitments a further stick to attack the Chelsea board with, unnecessarily so. Sarri has selection challenges, but these are largely which, out of a talented squad, he can pick for their Thursday adventures to be fresh and ruthless enough to win games by more than the one-goal margin they recorded last night. Olivier Giroud must, surely, have earned his place as first-choice centre forward, but that surely can't mean that £70 million Morata becomes a standby option. Whatever confidence issues have hampered him since Christmas, meaning that an expensive resource has now been misfiring in consecutive seasons, needs to be addressed. It's time to sharpen up.

Not a case of if, but when

Picture: Twitter/ChelseaFC

We’re a wacky lot, us football fans. We hold grudges long after they’ve served any meaningful purpose. Just ask Rafa Benitez, who, as Liverpool boss, made a habit of winding up Chelsea supporters...only to become, temporarily, the Chelsea manager (a toxic appointment, if ever there was one, but one which produced the 2013 Europa League title...). Just ask David Elleray, the referee whose pettiness contributed to Chelsea’s 4-0 humiliation to Manchester United in the 1994 FA Cup Final. Just ask Dean Saunders, whose tackle on Chelsea’s Paul Elliott in September 1992 effectively ended the defender’s career. We don't forget.

We football fans cheer and boo for the most capricious reasons. After Chelsea lost 3-0 at home to Bournemouth last Wednesday night, there were a few boos at full time, but these were largely drowned out by a chorus of "Antonio! Antonio!". There wouldn't have been a fan dressed in blue at Stamford Bridge that evening who expects Antonio Conte to be in charge of the club at the start of next season, but the singing made for a slightly odd end to what had, on balance, been a somewhat comic evening, in what is turning out to be a somewhat strange season.

Back in August it was generally accepted that Chelsea's defence of the Premier League title would be fraught with challenges, not least of which, the fact that it's harder to defend a title when you've got rivals like Manchester City and Manchester United hugely outspending you. If nothing else, Conte has conducted a lot of expectation management, reminding anyone who'll listen that Chelsea are (until their Carabao Cup exit to Arsenal) fighting on four fronts, whereas last season they didn't have a European distraction. And, without calling a spade a spade, he hasn't been getting the reinforcements he's wanted.

However, at risk of repeating my post from a couple of Fridays ago, when it seemed like the January transfer window was closing without much satisfaction for Conte, his apparent digs at the Chelsea board have continued, and have been at times none-too subtle. All of which reminds me of the great Stanley Holloway's ode, The Lion And Albert, in which young Albert visits Blackpool Zoo, taking with him "a stick with an 'orse's 'ead 'andle (the finest that Woolworth's could sell)" and promptly sticks it in the ear of "a great big lion called Wallace, whose nose was all covered with scars". "You could see that the lion didn't like it. 'E pulled Albert inside the cage with 'im, and swallered the little lad - 'ole!".

You can probably see where I'm going with this: take José Mourinho, Avram Grant, Luiz Felipe Scolari, Ray Wilkins, Carlo Ancelotti, André Villas-Boas, Roberto Di Matteo and Mourinho (again) for reference. Last week various newspapers reported that Chelsea's patience with Conte was running out, with former Barcelona manager Luis Enrique topping the list of potential replacements. Not that, for once, results are entirely to blame: the team that ran away with the Premier League last season, as well as becoming FA Cup finalists, have, in the last few weeks, recorded 4-0 and 5-0 wins over Brighton and Stoke, respectively, 0-0 results against Leicester, Arsenal and Norwich, and an impressive 3-0 home win over Newcastle in the FA Cup. Not bad results, but the goalless draws and £60 million signing Álvaro Morata's chronic dithering in front of goal (before he suffered a back injury) have added a tone of attrition to an otherwise OK season. Perhaps, then the "Antonio!" chants were more in irony than support.

When Mourinho was breeding "palpable discord" in the first four months of the 2015-16 season, before he was sacked, his mood had a very noticeable effect on the team. Conte hasn't got that bad, but his press conference comments about squad size have sounded like carping. His touchline demeanour on Wednesday night, too, spoke volumes: for two thirds of the game he was his usual self, barking at his players like a distressed seal, but then as the strength of the embarrassment seemed apparent, his shoulders dropped and he cut a somewhat lonesome figure. Forget chanting -  some in the crowd would probably have wanted to put an arm around him.

Conte is, after all, Italian, which means that emotions are not so much worn on the sleeve as engulfing the entire body like a onesie. His post-match press conference on Wednesday and pre-game press conference on Friday brought many of these emotions out in the raw - from defiance over the way Chelsea are, actually, playing, to how he's getting "120%" out of his players (not-so-subtle subtext: 'I'm lacking players'). The club is believed to have cautioned him over these niggles, and yet they continue, suggesting that the relationship may well be at breaking point. If not beyond repair.

Picture: Twitter/ChelseaFC

Tonight's game against Watford could prove crucial. It's unlikely that Chelsea will sack Conte if the result is indifferent, nor that he'll walk out before his contract ends (he's said as much that he wouldn't). But these are tricky days: tonight, Morata will still be out, backup striker Michy Batshuayi has been loaned to Borussia Dortmund (where he scored twice on his debut, just to rub salt into the open wound of Chelsea's goal scoring), new signing Olivier Giroud only joined from Arsenal last Wednesday, and the other great hope, Ross Barkley (who also signed in the January window), has joined a lengthening list of hamstring injuries.

On the one hand, you can't blame Conte for making pointed statements that he is "exploiting this squad at the maximum level", but on the other hand, while some of his personal transfer targets haven't materialised, the club has hardly been profligate when it comes to bringing fresh blood in.

Fatigue was, clearly, a factor last Wednesday evening at Stamford Bridge. Even substitutes, like Cesc Fàbregas, looked sluggish and jaded. Bournemouth took their chances well, but they were playing a team that had played 40 games already this season, and it showed. On this, we fans have sympathy. We even joke, as we walk up the umpteen steps to reach our seats in the Upper East Stand at Stamford Bridge, that we seem to have been doing it a lot in recent weeks. And we're not highly trained athletes running around Cobham most days of the week. Something has to give, and I doubt (though I may not be sure...) it will be my hamstring. There's some truth in that fable of young Albert and Wallace...

Does anyone have a cure for goal shyness?

Thanks to social media we are now familiar with almost every aspect of a footballer's life. When they sign for a club we get the obligatory 'thumbs up' photograph of the player undergoing his medical, followed soon by the contract signing itself, and then the standard 'club shirt/scarf aloft' picture. As they progress through their club careers we are entertained by videos of the player banging in trick shots and dummying teammates on the training ground, all designed to show what a fantastic player they are when, obviously, not having to deal with actual opposition players coming at them in full tilt.

However, none of this fan engagement via social media reveals what Chelsea's players are actually doing at their Cobham training ground all week long. Because, in last night's frustratingly tedious 0-0 draw with Arsenal in the Carabao Cup we saw the Blues dominate with more than half of the possession, and had 21 shots on goal against Arsenal's eight and six shots on target to Arsenal’s three. Álvaro Morata, the latest striker to bear the prefix "club record signing" was, once again, industrious without product, leading to a notable increase in the volume of tutting in the stand around me and my girlfriend (attending her first ever top-tier football match...).

After opening his Chelsea account with a number of we’ll taken goals early on, since October Morata has been achingly profligate, most notably in one-on-one opportunities. Now, it would be charitable to credit the goalkeepers in each of these situations, but the truth of the matter is that a striker with his cojones properly attached would have put those chances away time after time. And, of course, it can only get worse. One newspaper report today noted that defender Andreas Christensen is yet to score for the club. So what? He’s a defender. What I’m interested in is the striker scoring, mainly because in his job description that’s mostly all it says.

Chelsea have been there before, of course. In fact it’s been an Achilles heel of the club for many years that, not since Gianfranco Zola's era, has it enjoyed a striker so deadly that goals happen every time, without fail (and I'm not even sure that Franco was all that consistent). Not for nothing is the club's record goal scorer Frank Lampard, a midfielder. Diego Costa and Didier Drogba were the closest Chelsea have come in the modern, Abramovich era to a regular marksmen, though both suffered being temperamental, the latter in particular, when disinterested in a fixture, simply breaking down when it suited him. And there have been the fanciful experiments - Shevchenko, Torres, Crespo, Sturridge, Eto'o, Ba, Casiraghi - with mixed results, mostly of the occasional kind.

It's easy, of course, from my seat high up in the East Stand of Stamford Bridge to carp about what happens on the pitch below, but expectations are high. And when you're spending a reported £60 million on a striker, you’d hope he does what it says on the tin. Morata isn’t alone, however. I've now watched several consecutive Chelsea games in which the goal margins could have been higher had shots on target have actually gone in. Yes, some of those can be put down to good goalkeeping, but many could have been converted with more confident, accurate predation by the players involved. That, is what I want to see on my social media feeds. Not cute larks on the training field, but players - especially those paid handsomely to score goals - practising how best to bang them in, time and time again.

The problem isn't just Morata: even Eden Hazard has been more miss than hit. Teams like Southampton and Stoke - despite their shambolic league position - have gone out of their way to frustrate Chelsea in front of goal. But then that should be something the attacking side has a plan for. Again, back to the training ground. Morata has, though, been the most obvious miscreant. In last week's league encounter with Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium the Spaniard missed a priceless chance in the first half and then sent another effort wide when bearing down on Petr Čech towards the end of the 2-2 draw. Morata was, according to Antonio Conte, "not lucky in this period". "He’s young," the Italian explained. "I repeat, I understand for a striker it's not easy if you don't score, but don't forget for Alvaro it's his first season playing regularly. He didn’t always play with Real Madrid and Juventus. You have to know this. I’m very happy with his commitment and the way he's playing. He has to stay calm continue to play this way. The goal is coming." True, and last night you couldn't fault his work rate. But, to repeat, his job is scoring goals. Going back to October, his early season form dipped for the first time following injury, with Conte saying that he needed more time to return to top form after missing chances against Bournemouth, including yet another convertible one-on-one opportunity.

If anything, Morata's apparent lack of confidence, with his feet at least. in front of goal draws the spotlight on Conte's need for a striker in the January window (the exact same problem that led to Fernando Torres joining the club in January 2011). Michy Batshuyai, the charismatic Belgian, is the de facto backup to Morata, but he has looked increasingly not the solution with every ten-minute cameo Conte has given him. Long-term, there's Tammy Abraham, who won't be recalled from loan, meaning that the only salvation for Chelsea's misfiring forwards is either an epiphany or a fresh injection of talent. And it's not entirely certain where that might come from. For now, Chelsea need to work - and work hard - on the training pitch at Cobham. They need to rediscover what you do with the ball in front of goal, regaining the confidence to not overplay and overelaborate, but shoot straight and true.

The Premier League is now clearly out of sight for all but Manchester City, but with this Saturday's league fixture against Leicester, next Wednesday's FA Cup replay against Norwich, the second leg of the Carabao Cup against Arsenal a week later, and Barcelona in the not-too distant future in the Champions League, Chelsea need a strikeforce as effective as their defence continues to be, thankfully. Because it's goals scored we pay to see, not goals saved...

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...

Don't panic!! Well, not yet at least...

It's OK. No need to panic. Yes, I know we've been here before: a Community Shield encounter with Arsenal, a frustrated manager bemoaning the lack of signings, an apparent lack of confidence in front of goal, and a Premier League title to defend, but lightning can't strike twice, right? Right? Antonio Conte's gloomy fear of suffering "the Mourinho season", following an indifferent start that rapidly went downhill until the manager was sacked in December, can't happen again. Can it?

Based on the period since Chelsea lifted the Premier League trophy in May, it can. Not that it will, but the mood around the reigning English champions has been skittish to say the least. The parallels with the post-2015/16 season disaster are glaring, not least because of the manager's frustrations with the transfer activity (or lack of), but also in the fact that Antonio Conte - like Mourinho did shortly before that infamous opening game against Swansea on August 8, 2015 - has just signed an improved contract himself. Then there has been the substantial list of target players who've failed to show up, including Romelu Lukaku, gazumped by Manchester United.

Yesterday's draw at Wembley (settled with one of the more soul-crushing penalty shootouts you'll ever see without anyone wearing an England shirt) was another exercise in humility for Chelsea. Whatever hubris generated by last season has been reset to zero over the last few weeks. Beaten on that very turf, by the very same team, at the FA Cup Final in May, they exhibited none of the exciting swagger and even youthful exuberance of their compelling win over Arsenal during the pre-season tour in Singapore. In fact it was, too all intents and purposes, a complete re-run of the cup final, the game that determined that these two teams would meet again less than three months later at the same venue. That Victor Moses redeemed himself with a fine goal to erase the memory of a woeful performance in May that saw him sent off and Chelsea exposed, was negated by Pedro's rash raking of Mohamed Elneny's Achilles, the arguably extreme instant red card, and then Arsenal equalising from the subsequent free kick.

Twitter/Simon Johnson

The Community Shield is never billed as anything more than a curtain-raiser. Even Pedro's dismissal won't count when Chelsea kick off their title defence against Burnley next Saturday, as the Wembley game is considered a friendly. But as the Twitter cliché goes, there is no such thing as a friendly, especially when Chelsea and Arsenal meet. However, yesterday's game was an interesting, if subtle projection of managerial styles. Arsène Wenger stating in his post-match interview that he needs to cut down his first team squad of 33, with Antonio Conte reiterating his increasingly urgent need for signings - not that he needed to say anything.

There is still much to like about the Chelsea that won the 2016-17 English title, but there are also some glaring gaps. David Luiz - for all his charisma and chutzpah on the pitch - gave glimpses of his more maverick self yesterday. He's a wonderfully entertaining individual, but he also needs to remember that he's not infallible. He needs tougher competition for that position to keep him sharp. And Marcos Alonso, who sometimes doesn't get praised enough, can also easily demonstrate why he was something of a last-minute panic buy last summer.

But the bigger worry for me is that with Eden Hazard out injured, and Diego Costa resorting to doing workouts from the family garden in Brazil while he waits his return to Atlético Madrid, Chelsea are looking threadbare for real creativity. Alvaro Morata will get there, eventually, and Michy Batshuayi has come on leaps and bounds in the short space of time he's been leading the line, but even he looked profligate in front of goal yesterday. Pedro and Willian will continue to vie for starting roles in which their pace and guile can be applied, and Cesc Fàbregas will continue to supply inch-perfect passes - when he's allowed to play, and clearly at the cost of having the more defensive-minded Tiemoue Bakayoko play alongside Kante in the role he was bought for. But...

There are missing parts. Conte's summer refrain about signings has not been out of moody, Mourinho-style petulance, but a genuine concern that, while Chelsea's business dealings have seen a good amount of money come in for the likes of Nemanja Matic, Bertrand Traore, Nathan Aké and Nathaniel Chalobah, the £130 million spent so far on Antonio Rudiger, Bakayoko and Morata is not enough. In any normal time, and in any normal, non-inflationary market, £130 would be the most you could spend on a slew of signings. But we are not in a normal time, and Neymar's ridiculous move to PSG last week has merely poured a flammable liquid on the raging nonsense that is player valuations. Sadly, that means Chelsea will need to conform to this new reality if they're to bring in the players Conte wants and be able to compete with the affluence of domestic spenders like Manchesters United and City, or those they'll be facing this season in Europe.

The worry, though, is that time is running out to bring in anyone of quality. The double-edged sword of that is that anyone of quality either has the door shut on them by their present club, or a silly price tag slapped on them to keep suitors at bay. And the next thing you know, you're watching Sky Sports and live video of David Luiz, smirking his way through St. Pancras on transfer deadline day, and the feeling that, proverbially speaking, the slow ones are being played at the school disco, and you've missed out on the one you had your eye on all night long.