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Two set‑piece goals conceded and a player sent off told a familiar story for Chelsea as they lost to Arsenal, leaving them six points adrift of the Premier League's top four and down to sixth in the table.
Pedro Neto's cynical foul on the counter-attacking Arsenal winger Gabriel Martinelli made any comeback difficult in Sunday's 2-1 defeat, but the broader statistics paint a more worrying picture.
His dismissal was Chelsea's seventh in the Premier League red card of the season - the most of any other club - leaving them just two short of matching the competition record with 10 matches still to play.
Three minutes earlier, Jurrien Timber had headed in what would prove to be the winner, the fifth set‑piece goal Arsenal have scored in their last three matches, continuing a trend that has marked Liam Rosenior's early tenure at Stamford Bridge.
It had not all been negative though. Despite falling behind early when William Saliba headed in from a corner, Reece James's delivery forced a Piero Hincapie own goal to level the scores just before half-time.
Chelsea had been in the ascendancy but, one week after conceding both a red card and a set‑piece goal at home to Burnley, they again dropped points for the same reasons at Emirates Stadium.
"If we don't eradicate the set-play issues that have started to creep into our game and our discipline issues, then for all of the good things we do in the game, we are not going to get what we want to achieve," Rosenior told BBC Radio 5 Live.
This three‑game winless run has triggered fresh concern for Chelsea following Rosenior's appointment to replace Enzo Maresca, who departed after a New Year's Day fall‑out with the hierarchy amid similar, unresolved issues.
How bad are Chelsea's disciplinary problems?
Chelsea have received nine dismissals across all competitions, although former manager Maresca, who was sent off for over‑celebrating a last‑minute winner against Liverpool, does not count in that total.
They are one short of equalling the joint record of eight different players sent off in a single season, held by Sunderland. They are two away from matching the Premier League record for the most red cards in a campaign.
This is far from a new issue.
Chelsea, bottom of the Premier League fair‑play table, finished second‑bottom last season under Maresca and bottom the year before under Mauricio Pochettino.
Maresca initially played down concerns before later launching his own review of the team's indiscipline prior to his departure. Rosenior, meanwhile, believed he had tightened up Chelsea's disciplinary problems – only to see red cards return in consecutive matches.
"I have respect for the previous manager Enzo [Maresca]. I don't speak about what happened before but it is starting to happen with me," Rosenior said.
"That's something I felt we had addressed. We went 10 games without a red card, now [we have had] two in two games and that's a problem we need to solve."
Why are Chelsea getting so many players sent off?
One possible factor, which is played down internally in west London, is that they have the youngest squad in the Premier League and lack natural leaders.
Former England defender Matthew Upson told BBC Radio 5 Live: "It is costing them. I don't think it is something you can address at this point - you're in March.
"It is something that is said in pre‑season. It is cultural and you build it into the club. The players buy into it and they police it. It is about being measured and controlled at the right moment.
"Again, they are young as well. The younger you are, the more susceptible you are to those situations."
One of the leaders tasked with helping halt Chelsea's disciplinary slide, Reece James, told Sky Sports: "Every time it's someone different, not the same player. Internally we need to review and keep improving. It's a problem.
"We are playing in the toughest league in the world — 11 v 11 is tough; 11 v 10 is even harder, no matter who you are playing."
Chelsea are worried about set-piece defending
Only West Ham (15) have conceded more than the nine set-piece goals Chelsea have conceded in the Premier League this season.
Again, it is a longstanding issue. While Chelsea have improved in terms of attacking output, defending dead‑ball situations has remained a problem from Pochettino's tenure through to the early weeks of Rosenior's.
Chelsea have now conceded 10 set‑piece goals in 13 matches since Rosenior's appointment in early January – five of them against Arsenal, who knocked them out of the Carabao Cup with a 4–2 aggregate win in the semi‑finals.
Only last weekend, Rosenior introduced all of his central defenders in an attempt to protect a 1–0 lead against Burnley with 10 men, only for his side to concede an added‑time equaliser to Zian Flemming.
Before this latest defeat, no team had conceded more expected goals from set pieces than Chelsea's 14.05 in the Premier League this season.
Perhaps most concerningly, Rosenior revealed that Chelsea had been working on defending such situations without a midweek match to serve as a distraction: "There is certain focus and concentration issues that we have to address. We worked on set-plays all week and, as a manager, that makes it even more difficult to swallow."