Chelsea drew 2-2 with promoted Hull City on Saturday. On the back of a loss, albeit against Arsenal, it was an unwelcome development in these early weeks of Xabi Alonso's management.
It's important not to overlook Hull's own influence on the outcome. The Tigers have enjoyed an impressive start and remain unbeaten. Before heading south to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea, they hadn't conceded a Premier League goal.
Yet the result was undeniably a disappointing one for the Blues for one reason above all others: it must be a rarity that Chelsea, with punchy aspirations and huge investment in them, score twice at home without winning.
Chelsea need to close the back door to step up Premier League fortunes
Only one team in the division has scored more goals than Chelsea in the first four league games of the season, and they're an outlier.
Brighton & Hove Albion have netted 13 goals to Chelsea's 10, but nine of them were against an Aston Villa side that might as well have been meeting for the first time, and Coventry City, who've started badly and were ripe for the same treatment.
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Unfortunately for Alonso, it's a similar story at the other end. Chelsea, in fifth, have the worst goal difference and highest number of goals conceded in the top eight. It's important to recognise that it's early days and Chelsea have only been beaten by Arsenal, but Alonso will be looking for ways to tighten up.
Only three teams have conceded more than Chelsea.
Coventry goalkeeper Carl Rushworth has had to pick the ball out of his net 10 times in four games. That's not an ideal start but it's only one goal worse than Chelsea.
Crystal Palace are conceding regularly and it's a problem for Pierre Sage just as it is for Alonso, but four of those goals were scored by Rayan Cherki and Erling Haaland for Manchester City.
Ipswich Town, in ninth, have also conceded 10 times. Bruno Fernandes was responsible for three of those and Manchester United for five in total.
Chelsea's vulnerability is playing out differently. The West Londoners have conceded at least twice in all four of their matches, including their two wins out of the gate. They needed to score three times to beat Fulham and four times to beat Brighton.
That's only a problem if it becomes a problem. Chelsea's results have mostly overcome it up to this point and they've scored more than they've conceded. With attacking firepower like that, it would take a disaster to make it any other way.
But this is Chelsea. Saturday's goals were scored in the space of seven minutes against a defence that cost £140 million, was made up of players who were all at Stamford Bridge last season, and was backstopped by the self-proclaimed best goalkeeper in the world.
For now, these are teething issues at worst. Goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez can be a little patchy at times but tends to come good in the meat of the season, and fellow new signing Maxence Lacroix is just one of the options available to Alonso who wasn't on the pitch when Hull scored their goals.
As the margins get finer, though, there's no doubt Alonso will see defensive improvements as a way to give Chelsea the best possible chance of success.
'Soft' defending won't be good enough and the new boss has been clear that the short trip to Brentford is where he expects that process to kick in.
