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Shameful and Shambolic

Antonio Conte has just been shown how big a job he has got on his hands with this horrific loss to Arsenal. He was in the Emirates barely 15 minutes before he found his team down 2-0 and must’ve known it was a completely lost cause from then on in.

Having had a 4-2 win over Leicester coming into this game, the squad was looking to be on a positive rebound after losing 2-1 to Liverpool, but again the Blues expected an easy result to pan out with them not putting in the effort.

There were no positives to take from Chelsea’s performance. Not a single one. Nobody was working with anybody else, every pass was errant, I’m not sure if any shots were put on Cech’s goal that were worthwhile. It was just all completely routine for Arsenal.

I watched Hull lose 5-1 to Liverpool earlier today, and even they put on a better show than Chelsea did today.

There are no excuses left for this team or Antonio Conte. The fact is Chelsea only have shown up against easy opposition, but against real clubs they let themselves be ravaged from the inside out.

Diego Costa had nobody supporting him. Gary Cahill better be prepared to be sent back to Bolton or wherever in January. Nemanja Matic needs to force Conte’s hand into putting him back in a deeper role, and Willian deserves better teammates to work with.

I feel like a broken record all over again like I was last season. There’s no respite to be found anywhere - who can help the team? What needs to change? Is it the general personality of the team? Is a complete overhaul of the team necessary? Is Conte going to fake his own death?

At one point I could see in Courtois’ eyes him just thinking, “I’m not going to have to deal with any of this crap when I’m at Real Madrid.” Similarly I could see in Antonio Conte’s eyes him thinking, “Mamma mia, what have I just signed up for?”

After about 50 minutes into the match my mind started to wander in an effort to cope with the suffering, and I genuinely started to wonder how the hell did we win the title two years ago? Seriously. How did that happen? Every other club that year must’ve had a seriously off 38-or-so weeks, because these same Chelsea players were on top of the table for 37 of those weeks.

For the big picture-thinkers, this isn’t as bad as I’m making it out to be. We’re only six games into the season and it’s a marathon, not a sprint. This we all know. What we don’t know is what needs to be done to bring Chelsea out of the doldrums.