Another poor performance from Chelsea, another defeat and another Jose Mourinho sulk, with the manager, yet again, deciding to blame his players for allowing Leicester City to walk all over them in their English Premier League match at the King Power Stadium on Monday.
Mourinho has used all his tactics – blame the players, himself, albeit fleetingly, the referees, much more widely, the tactics of the opponents and even the ballboys.
None of them have worked. Chelsea continue to struggle, with this 2-1 loss to Leicester – thanks to goals from Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez -- on Monday being their ninth defeat in the Premier League this season, a staggering number for the champions, and the total number of losses the Blues have suffered in the last two seasons combined.
And to compound it all, there were, again, clear signs of player unrest in the camp. Eden Hazard, the reigning player of the year, was the latest in the "I don't really get along with the manager" exercise, when the Belgian, after being asked to carry on following an injury, despite being in pain, gave up and walked off the pitch, with a dismissive wave at the manager.
There was no "let's fix this in the dressing room, instead if airing our dirty laundry out in public" decision by Mourinho, either. Asked about the Hazard incident, the Portuguese said: "I don't know what is wrong. The only thing I know is that within 10 seconds he made the decision himself.
"He came off and said straight away he couldn't do it. Then he tried and immediately he came back off. He made the decision to come off. So it must be a serious injury [maybe said with a touch of sarcasm perhaps, there].
"His first reaction was 'I can't continue', his second reaction was 'I want to try', but after his first step back on the pitch he said he couldn't. He's injured clearly."
The common theme from Mourinho in all his post-match assignments with the media was "betrayed", with the Chelsea manager feeling his players had let him down, despite all the hard work in training.
"I feel my work is betrayed," Mourinho said. "I worked four days in training for this match. I identified four movements where Leicester score a lot of their goals, and in two of the four situations I identified they scored their goals. I went through it all with the players, you can ask them."
The amount of times Mourinho has used "I" is perhaps more jarring than the "betrayed" comment. At the end of the day, it is all about him isn't it? If the players did not take heed to his warnings, whose fault is that? Isn't it the manager's job to ensure the players are on board and follow the plans to the T? And if not, surely that means the players are not responding to his methods, or listening to his tactics.
Or maybe, it is just that his players' confidence is shot. But then the only way to get that back is with encouragement and support, particularly in the public eye, rather than just placing the blame on the players, which he did again, calling his squad at the same level as the relegation battlers.
"I don't think in this moment they can feel they are top players or they can feel they are superstars," Mourinho added. "They have to look at the Leicester boys and to feel these are the stars, these are the top players.
"They have to look to Sunderland and Watford and say: 'We are at the same level. I am not the superstar, I am not the player of the season, I am not the world champion, I am not the Premier League champion. At this moment, I am at your level.'"
Yes, the players are at fault, and yes, they need to play a lot, lot better than they have done. But the buck, at the end of the day, stops with the manager, and if the players are not performing, time and again, the manager has to take the responsibility.
Instead, Mourinho decided to criticise the men on the pitch, before making a bizarre attack on the ballboys, even if the Chelsea manager insisted that had little effect on the result, with Leicester City worthy victors.
"The ballboys were amazing," Mourinho said with sarcasm. "When we scored the goal, there was 15 minutes to go, which disappeared into five because the match almost finished there with the ballboys, the injuries, go in, go out, the ball disappears, all this stuff which is not nice, but they did very well.
"But the ballboys point I just say because I feel it is a disgrace for the Premier League, but please make it very clear that I don't want the ballboys story to be in front of a result that Leicester deserve."
Time is running out for Mourinho surely, and only Roman Abramovich will know when that time will come to a stop.
