The consequence of Chelsea's inertia amid danger is as predictable as it is alarming.
The latest manager to be caught up in the Stamford Bridge maelstrom is Antonio Conte. After an all-too-brief honeymoon period, the likeable and animated Italian is already finding himself caught between a rock and a hard place.
On the pitch, there's nothing new to tell. Chelsea have a desperate defence playing in front of a goalkeeper, Thibaut Courtois, who clearly would rather live in Madrid than west London. Then there's Branislav Ivanovic piping up to say the team didn't stick to the manager's game plan at the Emirates, where Arsenal dismantled Chelsea's backline with consummate ease in Saturday's 3-0 win. At least Diego Costa and Eden Hazard had been able to cover for the deficiencies behind them in the Blues' opening matches against West Ham, Watford, Burnley and Swansea. But against serious opponents in Liverpool and Arsenal, it was a case of mission impossible.
A fit again John Terry will provide the organisation and leadership and Kurt Zouma will return to provide further options at the back but it's not an ideal situation.
Having assessed the squad following his appointment in April, it was evident Conte had requested at least one world class central defender during the summer transfer window -- but he was given Marcos Alonso and David Luiz. Granted, N'Golo Kante was a decent signing, but one swallow doesn't make a summer and Conte has admitted he's losing sleep trying to figure out a solution with the resources he has available.
It all sounds horribly familiar doesn't it? That's because it is. It's well over a year since the penny dropped that the root of the problems may be in the boardroom rather than the dressing room.
Jose Mourinho hadn't been able to improve the squad that had cantered to the 2015 Premier League title. Mourinho wanted Paul Pogba and John Stones, but the Chelsea board failed to deliver and provided him instead with Pedro, Baba Rahman and Papy Djilobodji. Legendary goalkeeper Petr Cech was sold to Arsenal and then there was the curious case of striker Radamel Falcao brought in on loan despite having flopped spectacularly at Manchester United. Stars of the team, in particular Hazard and Costa, looked unfit and uncaring -- and Mourinho's opening day touchline spat with club doctor Eva Carneiro didn't do the Portuguese any favours.
A catalogue of defensive disasters and defeats led to the inevitable. Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich sacked Mourinho. Abramovich's right hand man, technical director Michael Emenalo, put his head above the parapet and advised the world there had been "palpable discord" between the manager and the team.
Exasperated supporters raged about the glaring deficiencies of Emenalo's CV and many pointed their fingers of blame for Mourinho's cataclysmic demise at the Nigerian, who was brought into the club as a scout in 2007 by former manager Avram Grant -- another Abramovich hire with a questionable football pedigree. At the time of joining Chelsea, Emenalo said the chance of working for Grant was "a wonderful soccer education -- like studying for your PhD at Harvard".
Emenalo's comment bordered on the ridiculous even then. Now it reads like a laughable example of the "it's not what you know, it's who you know," culture that has pervaded Chelsea since Abramovich bought the club in 2003. Currently pulling the boardroom strings is Marina Granovskaia, who previously worked for the Russian at Abramovich's oil company Sibneft, where the head of corporate finance was Eugene Tenenbaum -- another trusted consultant at SW6 -- alongside Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck, a corporate lawyer who worked on the deal to sell 72 percent of Sibneft to Gazprom in 2005.
Beyond Buck being a Chelsea fan and Emenalo's underwhelming career with the likes of Notts County, San Jose Clash and Maccabi Tel Aviv, Abramovich's current cabal of advisers are hardly steeped in the wisdom of football.
A billion pounds has been spent and yes, trophies have been won, but nothing appears joined up. The glittering academy has evolved into an embarrassing white elephant that churns out loan fodder and continues to frustrate its graduates as much as the fans eager to see promising youths progress to the first team. There are plans for a state-of-the-art new stadium but that project seems like a rich man's folly because the club can't get the basics right.
It's no wonder that Conte is having sleepless nights.
Hopefully, this time around, Abramovich will give his latest manager time to work through Chelsea's problems and maybe at the same time have the presence of mind to take a long, hard look at every aspect of the club he owns and the performance of the people he entrusts to run it and their accountability in respect of ongoing issues.
For too long, sacking the manager has been the easy option but it isn't the only one, and if Conte's struggles continue it will be interesting to see what Abramovich does next in his bid to re-establish Chelsea as a force to be reckoned with