LONDON: Suddenly, all the uncertainty around Stamford Bridge is starting to undermine the team.

Initially manager Thomas Tuchel managed to keep his players’ focus on their football after UK financial sanctions on Russian owner Roman Abramovich. That was on March 10. Chelsea won their next four matches, maintained third place in the table and progressed to the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

But new owners will not be revealed until later this month at the earliest and increasing, disruptive speculation is swirling around the futures of players such as Antonio Rudiger, Cesar Azpilicueta and Andreas Christensen.

Surely it was no coincidence that they are all defenders and it was Chelsea’s defence which collapsed like hopeless relegation candidates in the 4:1 home derby defeat by Brentford.

Chelsea’s defenders, who had conceded only six goals in the first 14 games of the season, were guilty of watching the ball and not the attacker, of failing to close the gaps and of not communicating with each other. Rudiger shot Chelsea ahead from 30metres in the 48th minute but Brentford hit back with three goals in 10 minutes from Vitaly Janelt (two) and Christian Eriksen.

Yoane Wissa rubbed salt into the wounds in the 87th minute with his first touch as substitute. The meltdown was reminiscent of Chelsea’s 5:2 loss against West Bromwich last season.

Tuchel said: “The goal [from Rüdiger] was exactly what we wanted to open up new spaces but the opposite happened. I don’t know why. Once we had the goal we stopped defending and gave them three fast goals which is very untypical and killed the game for us.

“We did not defend maturely enough and we were not aware of the danger in these moments. We got punished, they made the most of it. It’s on us, it’s our fault.”

Chelsea are world and European champions but cannot afford the same sloppy performance at home to Real Madrid in the Champions League on Wednesday. Before then they may even find that Arsenal have crept within two points of them in the Premier League if the Gunners win at Crystal Palace on Monday.

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