Chelsea Have Become a Fugazi, and Being Humiliated by Arsenal Proves It

We need to revise Antonio Conte's assessment of Chelsea.

"We are a great team only on paper," he lamented to the BT Sport cameras at the conclusion of a humbling evening for his team against London rivals Arsenal on Saturday.

Soon after, Conte was repeating the sentiment to BBC Sport as he completed his post-match media duties. It was an agenda he wanted to push, a significant factor he knows is going to play a big part in deciding whether his spell in west London becomes a success or failure.

Chelsea weren't just beaten 3-0 at the Emirates Stadium; they were humiliated. The manager had unknowingly led lambs to slaughter, believing he had inherited a group of players who represented something so much different.

The Blues have the big names, egos and salaries that tell us they shouldn't be suffering like this. The reality is something so much different. Failure in the last four transfer windows is taking its toll; Chelsea's unsuccessful policies are crippling the club.

Conte speaks about a great team on paper—it's the same impression for the club. Chelsea come with all the trimmings that tell us how we should label them as being elite, yet it's all a facade.

Chelsea are a fugazi.

The club has that elite exterior—the big-money shirt deals and other corporate attractions—but it is not behaving as such. Peel back the layers, and it's all starting to look horribly amateur. Chelsea can no longer dictate the market in the ways they used to, and they are struggling to redefine themselves in a landscape they helped create by constantly making mistakes.

Failure on the pitch is being driven by negligence off it, and the power brokers who roam the corridors of Stamford Bridge are refusing to acknowledge the fact. Instead, managers are seeing their positions weakened and paying the price for failure.

The perspective has to change, otherwise this torture will continue. Chelsea have already lost one talented manager because of the ineptitude of others, and if the early trends of Conte's reign continue, history tells us he will not see out the season.

Paul Gilham/Getty Images

That would be the tragedy here. Somehow among the melee, Chelsea have landed on their feet with the Italian. For all their mediocrity, Conte has planted himself at Stamford Bridge to save the day and drag the club from its slump.

Throughout his career, Conte's shown himself to be a talented, methodical operator. Given time to sort through Chelsea's mess, there's every reason to expect him to repeat that success in the Premier League.

The first few months of his reign have been impressive despite this recent dip in form. Working largely with the same squad that collapsed so miserably last season, he has made some positive changes that are reflected in what we've seen early on. Systems are different. Player fitness is better. There's even been a hint of character returning.

Convincingly beaten by Liverpool and Arsenal in successive league games shows there's more to be done for the problems of 2015/16 to be totally erased. But after six league games, did we expect anything else?

The problems of the past week or so aren't Conte's; they are Chelsea's. They're heavily ingrained in the club's fabric. Defensive lapses and players lacking consistency are nothing new and have been troubling the Blues as far back as 2011, when they last lost a league fixture to Arsenal before Saturday.

It's because of that former boss Jose Mourinho labelled his side as the Premier League's "little horse" in the 2013/14 title race. Back then, Mourinho was speaking about a lack of maturity, a need for his players and the club to acknowledge the reality they were in and shoulder the responsibility. He was talking about the problems Chelsea are facing now.

Winning the title so convincingly a year later, those fears were put to one side. Those problems Mourinho had identified were forgotten, but they were lurking in the background and resulted in him losing his job just six months after becoming a Premier League champion for the third time.

The Portuguese was complicit in his and Chelsea's downfall. But was he the sole operator? Was he the reason Chelsea collapsed and have yet to get back on their feet? The guilty were many, and with Mourinho gone, the same issues are lingering. They were there under Guus Hiddink, and Conte's inherited them.

Remember, this is the club that has failed to sign any major transfer targets since the arrival of Cesc Fabregas and Diego Costa in 2014. This is the club that has allowed a generation of legends to leave without being sufficiently replaced.

Didier Drogba acknowledged that much when he tweeted Theo Walcott after Arsenal's victory. "It's easy for the [mice] to dance when the cats aren't there," the former Blues striker wrote.

Notice how Drogba is speaking in plural terms. His tweet wasn't about him alone but a collective group of players who dominated Arsenal for a decade. Those players were Frank Lampard, Ashley Cole, Petr Cech, Michael Ballack, Claude Makelele, Michael Essien, John Terry and the Ivorian himself. There are others we've missed off that list.

Arsenal didn't beat Chelsea; they defeated a poor imitation of what the club once was.

In the past two summer transfer windows, when major rebuilding was needed, the squad hasn't been remodeled effectively. Leaving it until transfer deadline day to sign defenders this year and last is evidence enough.

Chelsea's policies have been at odds with where the club believes it should be. And that flawed strategy in the transfer market has meant promoting younger players has been made all the more difficult.

One criticism of Mourinho and Conte has been a lack of youngsters in matchday squads. For Conte at the Emirates, who was he going to select? Chelsea have 38 players out on loan, with the most talented defender in that number halfway through a two-year stint at Bundesliga side Borussia Monchengladbach.

Andreas Christensen may have benefited from the shortages Chelsea have at the back, but he isn't an option for Conte. Nor are the talented Bertrand Traore and Lewis Baker, who are on loan in the Netherlands with Ajax and Vitesse Arnhem respectively.

A failure to sign key players isn't being helped by farming out Chelsea's best youngsters. It means that, at 35 years old, Terry remains Chelsea's solution. And time is ticking on that one.

So long a sign of Chelsea's strength, the continued reliance on the captain outlines Chelsea's weakness. They haven't been proactive enough in promoting from within and signing players at the right time.

Kevin De Bruyne is a notable talent missing from Chelsea. There are plenty more, such as Andre Schurrle; the German was sold and replaced by Juan Cuadrado in February 2015, a move that severely weakened Mourinho's side. The Colombian is among those 38 players out on loan this term.

Chelsea's policies are failing the managers they sack. There's no coherence, and it showed on a sobering Saturday evening in north London. Chelsea had lost to Arsenal well in advance of kick-off, and they're going to continue to be edged out when it matters most if things don't change behind the scenes.

Garry Hayes is Bleacher Report's lead Chelsea correspondent. Follow him on Twitter @garryhayes.