Mauricio Pochettino has just four Premier League games to find harmony at Chelsea

Before Chelsea’s abject loss to Nottingham Forest, the home substitutes bounced and bobbed through a dysfunctional rondo drill. At one point, Cole Palmer and Mykhailo Mudryk ran straight into each other, before sharing a weak joke and weaker pat on the back.

Between the awkwardly overzealous laughter and the “I’m still learning how you do things here” vibe, this was an exchange seen constantly in British pubs, at weddings, or the first day of a new job – which is technically what Saturday was for Palmer. It said: here are two people who don’t know each other.

That interaction exposed a fundamental fact underpinning Chelsea’s £1bn transfer gorge – some of the squad members have still barely met. These aren’t teammates, these are colleagues in a rapidly expanding business. Plenty of them don’t even share a common language.

This is why Chelsea still feel awkward, incomplete, attempting to work out what they are and not really knowing where to start. Every pass is too hard or too soft, every run too early or too late. Is that four-at-the-back or five? There’s an all-pervasive, Stanley Kubrick-esque feeling of discomfort and dread around the team that’s both unplaceable and unmissable. Something just doesn’t fit yet.

Many will point to Nicolas Jackson’s early profligacy, or The Ben Chilwell Experiment at left-wing, but these are symptoms of wider dysfunction. After the game, the eldest outfield player in the squad by nine years took to Instagram to correct fans complaining that using a five-man defence was the cause of their woes. Oh, Thiago Silva.

If Chelsea’s only genuine senior figure is so rattled he’s taking to social media to vent at fans, what hope do the rest of them have? What example is their supposed exemplar setting? He might as well have posted “When people talk behind your back (three sad face emojis)”.

After the overblown excitement of victories over Luton and Wimbledon, the Forest defeat instantly reopened the barely healed wounds of last season. Not even Frank Lampard managed to lose this fixture. This was supposed to be a third consecutive home win, something Chelsea haven’t managed since March 2022. Instead, it’s yet another harbinger of doubt and doom, a reminder money cannot buy results or happiness, however preposterous the volume.

It also leaves Pochettino with a realistic window of four Premier League games to metamorphose his squad from the world’s most expensive caterpillar to an intricately interlinked tactical butterfly.

Those matches – Bournemouth, Aston Villa, Fulham and Burnley – are followed by a run where Chelsea face seven of last season’s top nine teams without reprieve.

This is the sort of streak which can fell a growing empire, stunt developing potential and confidence at source. A string of wins before Arsenal visit Stamford Bridge could accelerate the assimilation of Chelsea’s 11 new signings, make a coherent archipelago of these currently remote islands.

Yet further cheap defeats could herald catastrophe. If this side can’t beat Nottingham Forest or Burnley, what hope do they have against Man City? They’ll think that just as much as we do. Boos have already begun to perforate the film of overblown optimism at Stamford Bridge – what would an extended run of defeat and demoralisation do? How many players will start scrapping fans on social media? Chaos, collapse, chaos, collapse. It’s a cycle Chelsea are becoming familiar with.

Take Moises Caicedo on Saturday: Before and After Mistake. In the 47 minutes prior to him clumsily toeing the ball to the opposition, he was perhaps the best player on the pitch. After Anthony Elanga’s goal, he looked the same over-eager yet underprepared 21-year-old he was on his debut. His error may well have been a direct consequence of his lack of game-time alongside Conor Gallagher, or understanding with Chelsea’s defenders, but more results like this will not make him any more comfortable.

Many will now hope Pochettino has two weeks to help develop intra-squad harmony and cohesion, but unfortunately not. His post-match estimation was four, but in fact, Marc Cucurella, Raheem Sterling and Deivid Washington are the only trio from Saturday’s squad to remain at Cobham over the international break.

They may be joined by Benoit Badiashile, Reece James, Romeo Lavia, Armando Broja and Trevoh Chalobah, who are all in the latter stages of returning to full fitness. They’ll still need to promote academy talent just to rustle together a five-a-side.

So when is this all supposed to come together for Chelsea? When are £1bn worth of footballers supposed to look like even half that? Pochettino keeps mentioning “the process”, but it won’t happen by osmosis. In two weeks, this disparate squad will be no more coherent than it currently is, and there will be a month and four days until Arsenal visit Stamford Bridge.

Pochettino needs more time than he has. How he handles that temporal squeeze may well decide whether his Chelsea residency makes it to 2024. Finding some way for all his players to get to know each other seems a pretty good place to start.