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Oh, how Chelsea is floundering. Saturday’s defeat against Everton was its sixth of the season, evenly balanced between home and away losses.

The Toffees’ second goal was the 33rd the Blues have conceded this season.

It’s all a far cry from the days when Chelsea ruled English football under Jose Mourinho; when it was the football equivalent of a lean, brutal machine that steamrollered the opposition with a mundane monotony. During the Special One’s two English Premier League title-winning campaigns Chelsea lost a total of six games and conceded a total of 37 goals.

Built around a spine that included Petr Cech, John Terry, Ricardo Carvalho, Michael Essien, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba, it was by far the most successful team in the club’s history.

Yet for the owner, Roman Abramovich, it was not enough. He wanted success with panache and he wanted the Champions League. A man that rich, he had become accustomed to buying anything he wanted and when a succession of coaches failed to deliver with the expensively assembled squad, they were shown the door.

The 2009-10 Premier League title success is looking more and more like the swan song of an impressive team filled with bling that has reached the end of the line and a failed business model that focused more on expensive luxuries than team building.

There always was a feeling that Chelsea in its pomp would be a fleeting, transient event. It wasn’t built to last. Built to impress, yes, and built for success. But there was nothing behind the scenes, there was no youth development and there was no planning for tomorrow.

The core of the squad stayed the same but fringe players came and went; an assortment of the biggest names in the European game. But they proved to be mere baubles for Abramovich’s vanity. Players like Andriy Shevchenko, Michael Ballack and most latterly, Fernando Torres.

All things are relative and Chelsea isn’t exactly a lost cause. It is fifth in the Premier League, level on points with Arsenal, while Tottenham sits in third, 10 points clear.

Chelsea will face Birmingham City in the FA Cup on Saturday and, unlike Manchester United and Manchester City, is still in the Champions League with games against Napoli on the horizon.

Many clubs wouldn’t feel such a position was a failure. But for Abramovich it is. He wants the Premier League, he wants the Champions League and he wants the pretty football. His club has only once finished outside the top two in the last eight years and he hasn’t spent all that money for it to happen a second time.

Yet Chelsea continues to make headlines for the wrong reasons. Terry has rarely been out of the headlines for the wrong reasons, while the club’s new manager, Andre Villas-Boas, was reportedly involved in heated discussions with the players following the defeat at Goodison Park.

Perhaps there is a salient lesson for Manchester City, the new rich kids, in all this. Building a successful football club, one that will dominate the game for several years and not just a couple, takes more than just throwing large sums of money around.

It takes a plan and it takes hard work, with much of that hard work taking place far from the glare of the 24/7 coverage football’s big names now attract.

It is proving an expensive lesson for Chelsea to learn.