Last season’s champions have had a tough start to the season. By this time last year, Chelsea were top of the table with 28 points, now they’re third, but only three points behind where they were 12 months ago.

That suggests two things: that Chelsea aren’t doing too badly, and that a difficult start is nothing new to them. Indeed, looking beyond Chelsea, it also suggests that Manchester City are running riot: Conte’s side’s points total this day last year would have put them second in the league, but Guardiola’s 2017/18 vintage would still be six points clear of them.

There’s a lot of football to be played, but City don’t look like being caught. It now looks like a race for second place, or at least to pick up the scraps that Guardiola’s side might leave in the event of a collapse. And it’s starting to look like Chelsea might be in a position to do that.

This season has been billed as a Manchester shootout, and it certainly looked that way after the first few weeks of the season. Fighting on both points and goal difference, City and Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United looked head and shoulders above the rest.

Since then, the red half of the city have faded, but despite the fact that Chelsea have already lost three times this season, there might be a chance to grab that main challengers tag away from United.

The biggest worry this season for Chelsea was always going to be squad size and their ability to fight on numerous fronts. Last season, they were undoubtedly the best team in the league, but their triumph was facilitated in part by the mess left by Mourinho: not only was Conte able to galvanise a divided squad and thus have a greater impact, but with no European football to worry about, they were able to play week-to-week without any distractions.

This season, that was never going to be the case, but the negativity surrounding the team is over the top - it was always clear that Chelsea were going to need to be given some time in order to overcome that obstacle.

Squad rotation isn’t just as simple as swapping around the players. Some players are more adept in certain positions than others, and changing around the skill sets can often disrupt the side, or at least change the way it should play. And whilst that’s a necessary process, it’s not one you can master overnight: it takes a period of trial and error to get it right.

That’s what Conte has had to do so far this season. With the likes of Davide Zappacosta, Danny Drinkwater and Tiemoue Bakayoko coming into the side for players who were involved lots last season, this is a new-look Chelsea in many ways.

The Blues were always going to have to rotate. But compared to, say, Tottenham, this season, Chelsea have only three players who have played more than 900 minutes in this Premier League campaign so far, whilst Spurs have seven. It’s clear that, because they aren’t used to it, Chelsea are having to work harder to make sure that they know how to rotate and still keep the side effective in games.

Perhaps a good example of that is Chelsea’s victory over Qarabag in the Champions League, where Eden Hazard was used as a striker with Willian and Pedro either side. It was a strange formation for Chelsea without a main focal point up front, and something they hadn’t tried often. It’s clear that Conte is attempting to find ways of playing without certain key players, this time Morata, who will need to be rested at times this season.

Chelsea don’t deserve the negativity around them this season so far. There have been a few poor results, but that’s the price you pay for rotating the squad in order to find the right formula. Later in the season, that will bear fruit and see them gain ground on the pace setters.

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