Whether it's four at the back or three, one thing that hasn't been solved by either of Frank Lampard or Thomas Tuchel is just how to get Chelsea's attack ticking.
The Blues came into the London derby against Crystal Palace on the back of a Club World Cup win but that victory in Abu Dhabi was one of hard work in the defensive and attacking side of the game.
However, Tuchel's side never hit top gear regarding scoring lots of goals in the UAE based tournament but this trend has also tarnished any chances of winning this season's Premier League title, Tuchel said in the build-up to the Crystal Palace match.
"It's quite hard. Everything is quite hard. And that is the challenge and what we love. Sixteen points sounds too much, is too much, compared to where we want to be and what we demand of ourselves. But it's the reality," he said.
"To reach our targets, a realistic approach is also necessary so we should not get confused in thinking about winning the Premier League. Still, we have to realise we are in a race for the top four right now which is a huge thing in the Premier League in general.
"At the end of the season, you can look back and think about the reasons why it is like this and try to do stuff better. We can do, of course, things within the season to improve. This is what we do. But right now the focus has to be realistic and we are in a race for the top four.
"Maybe in this moment, things are not super easy for us, so we have to make sure we like the matches, don't get frustrated in matches that are tough against 'smaller' teams. Once we do this, I think we are a competitive team...still are.
"We go step by step in every competition. We will not start judging competitions now. The most important game we have is tomorrow against Crystal Palace and after that we switch competition and that is a good sign because it tells us that we are in many competitions and we should not lose faith now.
"We shouldn't get frustrated or less passionate about what we do. Let's keep going and push ourselves to the limit."
Tuchel's reluctant and underwhelming admission of being out of a title race was reflected just in the tone of the attacking play seen in the Blues' fortuitous win over the Eagles on Saturday afternoon.
Hakim Ziyech bailed out the lacklustre Chelsea forward line that didn't help at all with getting Romelu Lukaku heavily involved in the play, as it was revealed after by Opta that he only had a mere seven touches of the ball during the 90 minutes with only two of those seven coming in the opening period.
Not really his fault on this occasion as the £97.5million man conjured up two shots for himself from the small service available to him, something that will worry Tuchel ahead of Lille in midweek.
"I'm not so sure if I have a good answer. I don't know what it says. It says he was obviously not involved and could not make a point today. I am not sure if it says so much about us in general," Tuchel said in his post-match press conference.
To add onto the headache the manager in question now has ahead of the Champions League next week, a five-word verdict from Iain Dowie, who was on commentary with Gary Taphouse for this one, will ensure that the same front three will not feature against the current French Champions.
Midway through the second half, before Ziyech's moment of magic, he said what most Chelsea fans are thinking at this moment in relation to their attacking dysfunction: "Doesn't look anywhere near fluid."
