At a stage during the Newcastle defeat, Graham Potter's metaphoric treatment room was as full as it's ever been. Ruben Loftus-Cheek had gone off injured with a calf strain, Kalidou Koulibaly was down again, Mateo Kovacic hardly looked at full fitness and Thiago Silva was rested.
It's unfair to use players that are fatigued in a list of injuries, that's the very nature of the World Cup-affected beast we have all witnessed over the last two months but include Kovacic and Koulibaly who have both been in and out with knocks.
That would have made nine players with Reece James, Ben Chilwell, N'Golo Kante, Wesley Fofana, Carney Chukwuemeka and Kepa Arrizabalaga. There's case to argue that those nine playing when fully fit would give the current first XI a good run around.
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Within those players are seven first-team starters as well as Fofana who had the nod under Potter before getting injured. Take those players out of any team and there will be a drop-off, especially for a period of games as intense as the World Cup run-in.
With Kante you could even say he's worth two players. Often said he's like having another midfielder on the pitch, maybe he's worth double off it as well. In that case, the injured XIIII could definitely cause Potter's current crop some issues.
How Potter manages Kante, if he ever gets to - a comment made over the Frenchman's impending contract dilemma and fitness that will keep him out until at least March more than one on Potter's future - will be intriguing. Kante has somewhat been replaced by James as the world class star of the team. The fulcrum, the one to bring balance to the force. The one to lead them away from darkness.
Without James and Kante any team would be worse off, but like Thomas Tuchel had to endure, Chelsea may as well not plan for having their 31-year-old midfielder. The German once said of Kante: "He is our key, key, key player but the key, key players need to be on the pitch – and he plays only 40% of the games," which summed it up well. But in the current moment, there's a deeper point to this.
Potter is trying to make a team without superstars, not your natural ones anyway. Chelsea don't want a mixture of players from different managers, spearheaded by one all-powerful being that must score all their goals - they don't work at Stamford Bridge. The 2021 Champions League side was a collective effort. James was brilliant, Kante was majestic and the defence was unbreachable, a team project, no moment of magic exactly.
Potter is now trying to do this on a bigger and more successful scale. Players can win moments, that's needed, but moments don't win league titles and aren't consistent enough, that's been part of Chelsea's issue. And just like Kante was Chelsea's own suppressed superstar, he isn't like those Tuchel would compare him to.
"He is our Mo Salah. He is our Virgil van Dijk. He is our Kevin De Bruyne," Tuchel said last season. "He is simply that player: our Neymar or Kylian Mbappe." Kante couldn't be further away from the two individuals at the end and he couldn't be further away from Cristiano Ronaldo either.
The Portuguese forward will be linked, heavily linked, with a move to SW6 after his interview with Piers Morgan and Boehly's decision to even partly entertain a move for him last summer will cause a stir. But there has never been someone further away from what Chelsea want to be.
Kante is the superstar Chelsea have needed, the silent guardian, the quiet protector in the shadows, world class but only noticed for 90 minutes when he's on the field. Brighton never had world beaters, they never had a striker scoring goals, they had a group. That's where Potter needs to get to. Ronaldo isn't the way, follow the Kante blueprint.
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