Antonio Conte has been shown the true scale of his Chelsea task 

Chelsea are about winning. It is why Roman Abramovich brought Jose Mourinho back in 2013. After three years without a Premier League title, and despite the misgivings of some, he told those close to him: “I just want to win again.”

And Mourinho did that, of course, before last season’s meltdown which has left Antonio Conte picking up the pieces. The Italian will have time to work the players this week at Chelsea’s Cobham training ground – and he will work them hard after what happened at the Emirates when he tore into his spineless team at half-time - because they are not involved in European competition.

That will hurt Abramovich even if he knows that the landscape of the Premier League has changed and changed again since he arrived in 2003 and altered it so dramatically himself.

Back then, the then Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein memorably spoke of Abramovich’s parking “his tanks in our front garden and firing £50 notes at us”. Fifty million pounds, in fact, which is believed to be the fee that Dein turned down when Chelsea came calling for Thierry Henry.

Times changed again when Sheikh Mansour decided he wanted to buy into the Premier League with Abramovich despatching his trusted lieutenant Eugene Tenenbaum to ascertain whether the Abu Dhabi investment was here to stay or whether they would be a flash in the pan. He was dismayed to hear it was the former.

Abramovich will also have seen the money flow in from the United States and see how the Chinese want to invest heavily in the league and how the new television deals have strengthened the buying power of all the clubs and he will know that his financial supremacy has gone forever.

If that is the bigger picture then it does not mean that Chelsea cannot be competitive on the pitch. The club should have the advantage of all that Abramovich investment in its infrastructure and youth development for the past decade surely, eventually, finally reaping a dividend under the right coach.

But Conte is no magician. Structurally he has done all the right things since he arrived at Chelsea and staff have been impressed by his methods, his professionalism and his passion and not least in the way he and his coaching team have learnt and converse in English.

But already after thumping defeats at home to Liverpool and away to Arsenal Chelsea look like a team in transition. Do they have the right players?

A glance at the top of the Premier League table shows: Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal and Liverpool. Already it will take a good team to finish above any of those four and that is the challenge facing Chelsea and also Manchester United, Everton and the champions Leicester City.

It is only six games in and although Chelsea are just three points off fourth-placed Liverpool they are eight behind City and there is already a lot of traffic ahead of them with uncertainty as to whether they have the ‘va-va-voom’ to get close.

Evidently the defence is the major problem which will frustrate Conte given he identified that when talks opened with him as to whether he would be hired.

A quick crunch of the numbers shows that Chelsea have the oldest back four among the ‘big six’ – with an average age of 30.75. It is bumped up by the injured 35-year-old John Terry but, quite frankly, he is their best defender.

It is the only defence with an average age of more than 30 and that tells its own story - City’s back four averages out at 28.25 years; Spurs’ average is 27; Arsenal is 26.5; Liverpool’s is 27.5 and United’s is just 25 years. Why has that issue not been addressed by Chelsea?

They lost their spine of Petr Cech, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba and it was touch-and-go whether Terry would be offered a new contract last season until Conte’s intervention. It had been hoped that a new spine would emerge through Thibaut Courtois, Kurt Zouma (excused through injury), Cesc Fabregas and Diego Costa but that has not happened while players such as Gary Cahill, Fabregas and Branislav Ivanovic have really struggled and are in danger of being moved on.

Questions continue to be asked about Chelsea’s buying and selling and who is taking control on that. There may be a brighter future with that defence once Zouma returns and when Andreas Christensen returns from his loan at Borussia Moenchengladbach. But that will not happen until next season and it already feels like a campaign where Chelsea can only hope to get as close to possible to the top four without necessarily finishing there. And a second season outside the Champions League will be very difficult to take for Abramovich.

Are we seeing improvements in treatment of concussion?

Anthony Martial banged his head not once but twice in Manchester United’s recent game against Watford. It led to claims that the French international was concussed from the first incident – a clash of heads with Daryl Janmaat – and should not have carried on. He then hit the turf when tackled by Miguel Britos and was substituted. Concussion is not a precise diagnosis but the incident did see in action a new system brought in this season using the ‘Hawkeye’ technology which has been pushed for by the Premier League Doctors Group.

It involves consulting with the tunnel doctor who is allowed to review video footage of the incident – using the cameras installed by Hawkeye – to inform the club doctors exactly what happened. It meant that when United doctor Steve McNally and Watford’s doctor ran onto the pitch they were fully armed with the facts and could properly assess the situation. Quite why, however, this was not publically communicated by United when asked about Martial is another matter and led to the incorrect and unnecessary suspicion that manager Jose Mourinho had intervened to keep the player on the pitch.

Friday night football shows once again how fans are ignored

Friday night Premier League football returns this week with Everton hosting Crystal Palace – a 460-mile round trip from Selhurst Park. The last Friday night match was Liverpool away to Chelsea – 440 miles there and back from Anfield. Manchester United kicked off the programme with their game at home to Southampton whose supporters endured a 450-mile round trip.

Friday night football is undoubtedly a success but how long before the Premier League has to listen to the demands of some of the clubs – who have already made this point to the organisation – that the games should be capped at being played no further than a 100-mile radius from their home ground?