In the minds of the optimists occupying the boardroom at Stamford Bridge, there will come a point when Chelsea will be able to look back on the night when they lost to Fulham for the first time in 17 years and laugh about the time their new signing from Atlético Madrid took it too far with his attempts to prove he was capable of handling the rough and tumble of English football.
Yet the problem with that theory, the one that involves west London’s third-best club being rewarded for allowing Graham Potter to lead them through this most awkward of transitions, is that it jars with the current reality. There is trusting the process and then there is the spectacle of Chelsea lying in 10th place.
