Out of the Premier League title race – where did Chelsea go wrong?

While Bombastor’s frustrations may carry some weight, there are also troubling trends in their performance.

The team, still full of talent and experience, seemed empty of ideas and lacking in ruthlessness.

In recent seasons the Mental Monsters are no longer viewed as invincible as they appear to be more weak defensively and less effective offensively.

According to Opta, they underperformed more of their expected goals than any other team (24 goals from 29 expected) and in their 2-0 defeat to Arsenal, they had 18 shots but only one on target.

This is the first Premier League campaign in which Chelsea have registered one or fewer shots on target in multiple matches (also against Liverpool in their 1-1 draw).

They had 70% possession in the first 15 minutes of the second half against Manchester City on Sunday – but their opponents scored twice in that period.

That 5-1 defeat was the heaviest they have suffered in the WSL, leaving them the farthest from the top of the table since the final day of the 2018-19 season.

“Two top teams played against each other and one was effective and the other was not,” Bombastor said on Sunday. “I don’t put everything on the players, but we made a lot of mistakes and we have to solve this problem.”

“I always think about my decisions and my tactics. I’m always hard on myself. We played the game against Arsenal with three players in the back line. In this game, we changed the system to four players in the back line and tried something different with different players.

“As much as you always want to explain things in football, sometimes it doesn’t work. When it’s like that, it’s definitely difficult.

“You need to find solutions, stay strong, and make sure we are working on the basics. We need to get back to a level where we are producing more.”

It was rare to see Chelsea players looking so depressed and they seemed to collapse in the second half at the Etihad Stadium, in which City played them.

Bombastor said she is not worried, but with fans increasingly skeptical of her tactics and players lacking confidence, is she still convinced she is the right person for the job?

“At the club, if people think I’m not the right person to stay in this position, I’ll be happy to leave if they think it’s the right thing. But I’ll never give up,” she said.

“In football, I know this happens sometimes and you can be in this situation. I will always fight but the organization at Chelsea is more important than me.”

It may seem silly to doubt the manager who led the club to an unbeaten domestic treble in their first season, but such are the high expectations at Chelsea.

With a place in the Women’s League Cup Final booked, a Women’s Champions League quarter-final on the horizon, and the Women’s FA Cup campaign still on its way, it is not yet a crisis at Chelsea.

But with the WSL title defense over, there will undoubtedly be more focus on the knockout competition.