As Antonio Conte gears up for his first Premier League match in charge of Chelsea, there is no doubt the Italian will be frustrated with the state of his defence.
The former Juventus boss has built his successful managerial career on the foundations of a strong backline, which has almost always contained the fearsome trio of Leonardo Bonucci, Giorgio Chiellini and Andrea Barzagli.
Conte has already been critical of his new defence during pre-season. With Kurt Zouma injured, the gaffer goes into a fresh campaign with only John Terry, Gary Cahill and Branislav Ivanovic.
Terry is a club legend, but he is not supposed to be going into this season as a first choice centre-back after having accepted a pay cut and a lesser role as part of his new deal.
The club's defensive problems extend to the full-back positions, too, with Ivanovic looking like a liability last season after losing a yard of pace and a lot of confidence.
Ola Aina, who has yet to make his Chelsea debut, is deputising for both Ivanovic and Azpilicueta after a breakthrough pre-season campaign, jumping ahead of Baba Rahman in the pecking order to see the Ghanaian loaned out to Schalke.
To add to the Blues' pain, their rivals have strengthened at the back with John Stones - who was courted by Jose Mourinho last season - joining Manchester City, while Manchester United have added Eric Bailly and Arsenal look set to sign Shkodran Mustafi.
Chelsea have put all their transfer eggs in one basket, with their focus on Napoli defender Kalidou Koulibaly. But despite the player being keen to force a move, the club's president Aurelio de Laurentiis has been extremely difficult to deal with and commands a very high fee for his star defender.
There are signs that Conte's team are increasing in confidence regarding the signing of Koulibaly, but if the deal falls through they will be left desperately short - especially having sent Michael Hector, Rahman, Nathan Ake, Andreas Christensen out on loan,
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