Nobody is happy at Chelsea and it's becoming clearer and clearer by the week. After conceding the third goal in half an hour at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday, the four players stood in the penalty area all looked like they wanted the ground to open up and swallow them.
Losing to Arsenal is never a way to endear themselves with Chelsea fans. This group have now been bettered three times in a row by their London rivals. They went into the game as evident underdogs for the first time in well over 15 years.
As expected, the Gunners did a job on them. Even a shaken Arsenal side, plagued by a run of no wins in four and facing the mighty challenge of overhauling Manchester City, were able to dismantle Chelsea. Most teams do it nowadays.
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It has been coming as well. Brighton hammered Frank Lampard's side two weeks ago and Brentford, with nothing to play for, hardly got out of first gear to win 2-0. It's six defeats in a row for Lampard as interim boss and the season can't end soon enough.
Even the club's captain, Cesar Azpilicueta, who has remained largely reserved and understated throughout his ten years at Stamford Bridge, couldn't hold back his anger. "It's the worst run since I've been at the club," he said at full-time.
"We're the ones playing on the pitch and we have to turn this around. It's hard for everybody and we have to come through these moments. Off the pitch we have a lot of things to work on.
"The first half we were quite passive. We know they are a dangerous team and will bring a lot of people forward but we should've done better with the ball. In the second half we showed a bit of a reaction, in the first half we were far from there. It's tough for everybody, we're not in a good position.
"The reality is what we have now. We have to go through it. We are all disappointed, the fans at the club. We have to take responsibility and that's the only way. It's very hard, we didn't expect to be here but that's where we are. We have five games left, we have to show positive energy and win games."
Chelsea face the real prospect of not picking up another point this season, luckily for them 34 might well be enough to avoid relegation. They are playing like the worst team in the league and look like a squad that have already been relegated.
There's no win in nine now in all competitions and just two points from the past seven league games. It's been over two months since their last victory. Lampard himself hasn't been able to stem the flow of terrible results and didn't hide his own frustration.
“Chelsea has been a big success for 20 years but at the moment we aren’t in that position,” he said. “In the time I’ve been here it’s clear to see behind the scenes, on the training ground, the reasons why.
"If you’re going to be a nice team to play against all the time it doesn’t matter where you go. That won’t change overnight but we better get there quickly.
“The passive nature of our game you could attribute to many things. The players certainly care. They are low on confidence, but when you play for Chelsea you have to play a certain way even if you are low on confidence.
“Whatever it is, it maybe doesn’t even matter because the only thing that will get you out of it is understanding and working hard. The gap was the other way around for many years.”
Having largely been complimentary and understanding of Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital's ownership the two senior figures at Chelsea have now called out the heirarchy publicly. It follows a recent trend with Thiago Silva also doing so after the Blues fell out of the Champions League.
"I think the first step has been made. An incorrect step, but it has been made," Silva told TNT Sports after being knocked out by Real Madrid. "We can’t be blaming the managers if we don’t take responsibility. It’s a hard period for the club, with a lot of indecision.
"Change of ownership, new players arriving – we had to increase the size of the changing room because it didn’t fit the size of the squad.
"A positive point is that there are amazing players in the squad but on the other hand there are always players that are going to be unhappy. There is always going to be someone upset because not everyone can play.
"The manager can only pick 11 from a squad of 30-something – that’s tough. Some can’t make the squad, we signed eight in January, we need to stop and put a strategy in place otherwise next season we could make the same mistakes."
Having spent over £600m and ending up with the worst set of results relatively in the clubs history it is an embarrassing state of affairs and not a pretty picture for Boehly-Clearlake.
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