The statistic does not make good reading: Graham Potter has made the worst start by any Chelsea manager in the last 30 years.
Wednesday night's 1-0 defeat away to Borussia Dortmund in the first leg of a Champions League last-16 tie means you have to go back to the beginning of Glenn Hoddle's tenure in the early 1990s to find a man in charge at Stamford Bridge who had a lower win percentage during his early months.
How quickly things have changed.
After Chelsea won 2-0 at Italian champions AC Milan in the group phase of the competition on October 11, The Athletic drew up a table comparing Potter's record over his first five games with the club's other managerial appointments from Jose Mourinho's arrival in 2004 onwards.
With four wins and a draw, plus a healthy goal difference of plus-nine, Potter sat a credible fifth out of 15 managerial spells assessed (including the two different stints that both Mourinho and Guus Hiddink had in the job).
Chelsea managers (first five games) MANAGERWONDRAWNLOSTFORAGAINSTWIN PERCENTAGEMaurizio Sarri500144100Carlo Ancelotti500123100Guus Hiddink 150071100Luiz Felipe Scolari41013280Graham Potter41011280Antonio Conte41012680Andre Villas-Boas4109380Jose Mourinho 14106180Thomas Tuchel4106180Roberto Di Matteo40113580Avram Grant3117360Guus Hiddink 22309440Rafa Benitez22110540Jose Mourinho 22126440Frank Lampard12281120
Some readers made the point it was rather premature and wanted Potter's standing to be judged over a longer period.
The aftermath of another Champions League trip four months later seems a fitting time to take a second look.
Potter has now been in charge for 24 matches, which provides a greater number by which to differentiate between all the managers Chelsea have employed in the modern era. Barring Hiddink's first period at the club in 2009 (he oversaw only 22 games), the managers' standing in the table below is based on their respective opening 24 results.
The same rules applied for the first table compiled in October are used here: Community Shield games did not qualify but UEFA Super Cup matches did, and any loss on a penalty shootout is counted as such, not as a draw. Anyone level was then separated on the number of losses and goal difference.
Potter's nine victories give him a winning percentage of just 38 per cent. It quickly became apparent he is now bottom of the original 15-man shortlist, so The Athletic went further back into club history.
Other predecessors Claudio Ranieri (2000-04), Gianluca Vialli (1998-2000) and Ruud Gullit (1996-98) also rank above him. It took going back to Hoddle, who won just five of his opening 24 games in 1993-94, to find a poorer start when it comes to win rate; and in Hoddle's defence, he was juggling jobs as a player-manager for the first couple of months.
There is some more data that stands out for the wrong reasons.
The number of goals scored (25) and the goal difference (plus-two) under Potter is also the worst of any Chelsea boss since Hoddle's returns of 17 and minus-11.
The figures do not paint Potter in a good light then, but they can only tell part of the story.
Is there any justification for this or does his performance deserve more criticism? Here are the arguments for and against…
Potter is the first to admit results haven't been good enough, yet there are mitigating factors.
Unlike the majority of the managers on the list, Potter was appointed mid-season. Given he has such a different preferred playing style to predecessor Thomas Tuchel, who was sacked in early September, the fact he was not in charge for their pre-season is surely significant.
Potter has not had many days with his squad on the training ground to teach them his methods.
His first match was against Red Bull Salzburg in the Champions League on September 14. After that, the majority of his players went off on a two-week break for the final rounds of pre-World Cup internationals. On the resumption of club action in early October, Chelsea had 13 matches across three competitions in 43 days before a six-week gap for the playing of the World Cup, which again involved plenty of the squad jetting off to be with their national teams.
With victories hard to come by and little chance to work on putting things right on the pitches and in the meeting rooms at the club's Cobham base, confidence levels have inevitably deteriorated.
It should not be forgotten that Chelsea's dip in form had begun before they changed manager. Tuchel lost eight of his last 21 games going back to the start of April and, barring the odd exception, they had become quite dull to watch.
Chelsea's problems finding the net have actually been an issue for years, best highlighted by the fact Diego Costa in 2016-17 is their last player to score 20 league goals in a season.
Before Potter arrived from Brighton & Hove Albion, Romelu Lukaku had been sent back to previous club Inter Milan on a season-long loan, and the new head coach also had no say in the purchase of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang from Barcelona just a week before Tuchel was fired. The former Arsenal striker, now 33, scored three goals in as many games for Potter in October but has not added to that total since.
Aubameyang on the bench (Photo: Jacques Feeney/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
The number of injuries has also been extraordinary.
When loanee Joao Felix was sent off against Fulham on his debut last month and incurred a three-match ban, Chelsea had the equivalent of a full team of first-team players unavailable, with 10 injured at that point.
Potter has not been able to pick one of the club's best players, N'Golo Kante, at all due to the serious hamstring injury he suffered in August. Influential full-backs Reece James (knee) and Ben Chilwell (hamstring) have started only 23 games between them due to their fitness issues. Striker Armando Broja won't play again this season because of a knee ligament injury sustained in December and defender Wesley Fofana has only just returned to the squad after four months out with a similar problem.
Fofana is one of 18 signings (including loanees Denis Zakaria and Joao Felix) that the club's new owners have made in the space of seven months.
Granted, some haven't been in first-team contention yet, such as youngsters Cesare Casadei, Gabriel Slonina, Andrey Santos and Malo Gusto (who was signed from Lyon last month then immediately loaned back to the French club for the rest of the season). But that still leaves an extraordinary number of players to gel together with the other talent already in place as the season is ongoing.
Is it any wonder they have looked like a team of individuals on occasion?
For example, in the 1-1 draw away to West Ham last Saturday, half of Chelsea's 10 outfield players were January signings — Enzo Fernandez, Noni Madueke, Mykhailo Mudryk, Benoit Badiashile and Joao Felix.
Fatigue should also be considered as part of this. Chelsea played the joint-highest number of games along with Liverpool last season (63). Jurgen Klopp's side are struggling now, too. Coincidence?
As well as goals and health, luck has been in short supply.
Here are just two examples from the last two games.
Chelsea were furious not to be awarded a late penalty against West Ham when Tomas Soucek handled a shot by Conor Gallagher. Then, during the loss to Dortmund, among numerous opportunities created, Kalidou Koulibaly had a shot cleared off the line and an effort from Joao Felix hit the crossbar.
Previous Chelsea coaches have benefitted from kind draws in the domestic cups to help them build momentum. Under Potter, they have been drawn away to reigning Premier League champions Manchester City in the third rounds of the Carabao Cup and FA Cup. Nobody was surprised they lost both ties. Most teams would have.
Finally, Potter joined as part of a long-term project under the Todd Boehly-Clearlake consortium.
Obviously, the new co-owners hoped he'd be doing better than this but as The Athletic reported this week, they want his work to be judged over years not months.
Against
This is Chelsea we are talking about, not Brighton. They have been the most successful club in English football since their previous owner Roman Abramovich took over in the summer of 2003, winning 19 trophies (21 if you count the Community Shield) at home and abroad during the Russian's 19-year reign.
Even though performances tailed off under Tuchel, last season saw Chelsea finish third in the Premier League, win the Club World Cup and reach the finals of both domestic cups. It is some fall from grace to go from that level of performance to this.
Granted, not every one of this season's 18 signings was made while Potter was at the club and there are a lot of new faces to bed in. But the vast majority of this squad are internationals with a wealth of experience. Many other coaches would love their respective owners to spend more than £500million in the market to get them new toys to play with.
Apart from switching to four at the back, there has been very little evidence of a cohesive game plan coming together under Potter, a noticeable change. The attacking play is still too slow and relies on a moment of brilliance or a fortunate break to go their way.
Despite all the forced absences detailed above, observers have questioned whether Potter knows his best team. He has made 61 changes to the starting XI across the 16 Premier League games he's been in charge of.
Taking over with a season already underway has not been a negative for other Chelsea managers.
Vialli won the League Cup and FA Cup in 1997-98 after replacing Gullit in the February; Potter's fellow September appointment Avram Grant took Chelsea to their first-ever Champions League final a decade later; Guus Hiddink won the FA Cup in 2009 having been in charge for three months. Roberto Di Matteo didn't get the job until March 2012 but within weeks lifted both the FA Cup and the European Cup; Rafa Benitez succeeded the Italian the following November and went on to secure that season's Europa League; and Tuchel took Chelsea to their second Champions League triumph in May 2021 having succeeded Frank Lampard in the January.
You can argue only Hiddink, in his second spell as interim head coach beginning in December 2015, failed to spark an improvement.
Those among the fanbase who are growing frustrated now will remember how Luiz Felipe Scolari and Andre Villas-Boas were fired in their first seasons at the club, and both had far better win percentages than Potter does now when the axe fell.
Having decided to omit Aubameyang from the squad for the Champions League's knockout phase, there is no recognised striker available to help them progress.
Even if he is not considered good enough to lead the line from the outset, you would think he would be a useful asset to have on the bench. There are several midfielders Potter could have discarded instead to make room for Aubameyang, including Christian Pulisic, who is facing at least another month out with a knee injury. By the time the American returns, Chelsea will have played the second leg against Dortmund and may be out of the competition.
Compared to Tuchel, Potter simply does not get his message across very well to the fans via the media.
The 47-year-old is pleasant and respectable, which is nothing to be ashamed of. But Chelsea's successful managers have all had an aura about them which makes its way through the camera lens to the supporters.
The Chelsea dressing room has always been one of the hardest to control and, rightly or wrongly, there are supporters who believe Potter is simply too nice to inspire the current group. His lack of trophies at the highest level only adds to that theory, having won nothing since his days with Ostersunds in Sweden six years ago.
In these situations, it is normal for there to be a difference of opinion among the fans.
Up to now, the vocal unrest at games has been kept to a minimum. Should Potter's record continue to disappoint, the grumbling will only get louder.