When asked to identify the shortcomings in his Chelsea team following Sunday's 2-0 defeat at Everton, a dejected Mauricio Pochettino lamented: "It's everything."
Another loss left the Blues 12th in the table (they would be 13th were it not for Everton's points deduction), and afterwards Pochettino uncharacteristically called for the club to keep spending in January, despite their £1billion-plus outlay under the current ownership.
When he was coming up with Tottenham, Pochettino was not averse to pressuring the board with calls for signings but, generally speaking, he was a rare breed of modern coach who was sceptical of spending his way out of trouble.
In a refreshing contrast to peers such as Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte (later his successors at Spurs), Pochettino was energised by the challenge of developing youth and wary of adding new signings to the squad who might not take to his punishing training sessions and high-intensity football.
Under Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali, Chelsea have spent more than any club in Europe, supposedly to build a squad of young but talented players just waiting to be moulded into stars. So why the demand for more signings?
There is an overwhelming sense that Chelsea lack not just quality, but character, identity and a culture
Is Pochettino a different coach now — older, less patient and more demanding — after his spell in the madhouse of Paris Saint-Germain? Or is Chelsea's unprecedented spending simply so unconvincing to the head coach that he sees no choice but to keep going?
Even at this early stage, it is clear that many of Chelsea's expensive signings are not performing better than the players they replaced, and Pochettino's demands for an imposing goalscorer, a creative midfielder and a ball-playing centre-half are understandable, given his side's displays.
Raheem Sterling, Cole Palmer, Conor Gallagher and Levi Colwill are probably the only players to have seen their stock rise this season, suggesting the surest way forward is to sign players from Manchester City or promote from the academy.
Alarmingly, though, Pochettino's Chelsea have improved little from the grim second spell of Frank Lampard, while some of their expensive recruits, including Enzo Fernandez, appear to be regressing.
There is also an overwhelming sense that Chelsea are not just lacking quality, but character, identity and a culture, too.
It says a lot about the current state of the club that Chelsea felt a warmer and more soulful place when a certain Russian oligarch was in charge.
As popular social media account @chelseayouth pointed out this week, there is a "cold, transactional" feel to Chelsea under Clearlake that is unlikely to be easily improved by replacing Pochettino or signing more players.
Chelsea have sold off a string of academy graduates and replaced them in most cases with equally young players, who may rank better statistically but have no feel for the club.
Admittedly, this process pre-dates Clearlake, with the likes of Marc Guehi, Fikayo Tomori and Tammy Abraham sold under Roman Abramovich to fund signings such as Romelu Lukaku.
Former Chelsea player Pat Nevin this week described the squad as assembled "by algorithm", while earlier in the year Didier Drogba said he "no longer recognises my club".
The warm-hearted Pochettino would, in theory, be a great manager for a club seeking a cultural shift and more unity. When he arrived at Spurs, Pochettino found an organisation with gleaming, state-of-the-art training facilities but a frosty atmosphere, riddled with fear. His solution was to tap into the club's very soul by promoting young players who cared about Spurs — the likes of Harry Kane and Ryan Mason — and ostracising overpaid mercenaries such as Emmanuel Adebayor.
At Chelsea, however, Pochettino cannot mine the rich seam of the club's homegrown talent because the business model is to fund new signings by selling off academy players, who count as pure profit in Financial Fair Play terms.
To keep buying, Chelsea will have to keep selling, and their only saleable assets today are academy players who have not been signed for enormous fees and tied to lengthy contracts.
There is already speculation that Gallagher, often named as captain, could be allowed to leave, while Trevoh Chalobah and Ian Maatsen are seen as expendable.
And herein lies the paradox, the unresolvable conflict in Clearlake's supposedly innovative business model: if Pochettino wants to make Chelsea competitive again, he needs more players. To sign more players, he will have to accept Chelsea selling off more of their soul.
