The last thing you want is to sound like a broken record, though I am not sure that reference works too well for many of the younger generation. Suffice to say that against Aston Villa, it was not the first time Chelsea trudged off the field this season without the desired points after having the lion’s share of possession and most shots at goal.

At the weekend it was impossible not to think that it was like Groundhog Day and most of us were feeling as frustrated as Bill Murray’s character did during that classic movie.

The upshot is that once again Chelsea fans are waiting for the decision on who will be our next head coach, a head coach who will have to hit the ground running with some vitally important games coming up in the very near future.

There will be plenty of keen candidates because A, it is Chelsea Football Club and B, there are some very good players on the books, particularly young and improving players, who will whet the appetite of any good coach.

There is also a C, and that’s the lure of a Champions league quarter-final against Real Madrid. Most people agree that Chelsea are second favourites for this one, so there is less pressure on whoever is in charge by the time the tie takes place. They will not be judged too severely on the outcome, so it will be a great opportunity for whoever is in the dug-out.

It can’t be impossible

It does get wearying digging into the statistics every week, suggesting that we aren’t too far away from a decent run of results, but there truly are some very good signals not far from the surface, and the new coach will like that.

There is a good team waiting to emerge and most people realise that. It was bordering on weird that our 27 shots to Villa’s five on Saturday, with only two of their attempts on target, ended up with the visitors winning 2-0. Surely it can’t be impossible to change those numbers around to our advantage.

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There was a decent argument that we went through a period when we were a bit ‘shot shy’ this season, but clearly that has been addressed at Cobham lately. This is evidenced by the fact that only Crystal Palace and Brighton (the latter in a mad game against Brentford) had more attempts on goal than Chelsea in the Premier League at the weekend. Even Man City and Arsenal both had fewer attempts (17 and 13), so clearly it comes down to quality of finishing, as well as a bit of bad luck and some infuriating woodwork that just will not play ball with us.

So the problem that was originally about not making enough chances has morphed into making them but not taking them, so I suppose that is progress to a degree and again something that can be worked on very specifically at the training ground.

I do hope that not making enough chances will be less of a problem now. If we keep buying that number of tickets we will eventually win something in the raffle.

I wouldn’t be too surprised if almost the entirety of yesterday’s training session involved finishing practice and very little else. To be fair that is usually lots of fun, unless you are a keeper of course. They generally hate that part, but they will have to swallow it just now for the greater good. A football club is never a great place to be just after a manager has left, especially if he was the one who brought you in, so anything to liven the training ground up will be welcomed right now.

When the chances aren’t going in, it is not uncommon even for top players either to panic by blasting it early in the general direction of the goal or to just not feel as confident when you see the whites of the keeper’s eyes.

In reality, the trick is to still keep calm if you possibly can. The best scorers pass the ball into the net and worry less about hitting it hard and more about hitting the corners. You can understand to some degree why Mykhailo Mudryk snatched at the two opportunities he had in the first half against Villa when he was one on one against Emiliano Martinez. For forwards, before they score their first ever goal for a new club, it is always playing on their minds. After the first one goes in, even if it is a fluke or a deflection, the target suddenly looks a lot bigger, time goes much slower, and the player feels a lot calmer when the chances fall to him. What Mykhailo and a few others would give for a simple back-post tap-in just now.

The mood would lift

Footballers are a resilient bunch however and a win will lift all their spirits no end, even if the manager has changed and the chances aren’t being converted at the moment. Fans are resilient too, we follow through thick and thin, and to be fair Chelsea fans have learned how to cope better than most with managerial changes over the last couple of decades.

It didn’t however help the general atmosphere when we dropped back into the pack and indeed the bottom half of the Premier League race, with the final straight in sight. That is why the decision, no doubt grudgingly and with sadness, was taken to relieve Graham Potter of his duties.

It does make tonight’s game against Liverpool even more important, as much for morale as for the league position. We love beating Liverpool so the mood would be massively lifted by a win against one of our great rivals. It would also build the confidence with that big one against Real Madrid just around the corner.

Liverpool themselves are feeling not dissimilar to us after a season languishing way below where they would expect to be. As mentioned before, at the weekend we had 27 attempts with eight on target, Liverpool meanwhile had only four attempts with just one on target - they scored with that one, but it was against Man City away from home to be fair. Even so, that is unrecognisable for the side who were serial title challengers for four seasons in a row, including winning the trophy once.

It all goes to show how important regeneration is in football and how it has to be done constantly at every club. Clearly Liverpool are in a transition period, but Chelsea’s transition is even more extreme, as is evidenced by the number of young players who have arrived and who are for the most part still settling in.

There isn’t a definitive way or timescale to make these changes and the proof in that particular pudding will only become apparent in time, but it is clearly a painstaking, not to say sometimes a painful process, whoever the manager is.