Dear Antonio Conte …

Think back to last April.

The sun shone over Stamford Bridge. The players: brimming with confidence. The team: seven points clear at the top of the table. The manager: passionate, happy, but most of all confident in his own ability and that of his side.

Chelsea had just beaten Manchester City 2-1 – an Eden Hazard brace proving enough to complete the league double over Pep Guardiola’s side.

Fast forward just less than a year, and oh, how things have changed.

A shadowy cloud looms over South West London. The players: dejected. The team: placed fifth and almost out of sight of the top four. The manager: negative, quick to pass-the-buck and most horribly of all, displaying a complete lack of confidence in his own ability and that of his side.

Sunday’s 1-0 defeat to Manchester City was a mockery- an afternoon in which last season’s Premier League Champion’s rolled over before kick-off, and showed little intent to walk away from The Etihad with anything to show for their eight-hour round-trip.

So where did it all go wrong?

Fingers can be pointed at the club’s transfer policy and the board’s apparent lack of ambition to spend money. They can be pointed at the players, who you yourself have consistently suggested are not good enough. They can even be pointed in the direction of the opposition – who are simply too good for Chelsea to compete with.

The truth however is that the club have spent over £200 million on new talent this season, and while those who came into the club may not have been those at the top of the wishlist, the likes of Alvaro Morata, Tiemoue Bakayoko and Antonio Rudiger all have the talent to at least have Chelsea pushing for a top two finish.

And despite losing Diego Costa to Atletico Madrid and Nemanja Matic in the summer (which admittedly were both big blows to the club), the core of the squad remains very much the same.

Thibaut Courtois remains between the sticks. Cesar Azpilicueta, the league’s most outstanding defender, is still at the heart of the defence. Victor Moses and Marcos Alonso have persist out wide. Reigning PFA Player of the Year N’golo Kante sits plum in the heart of midfield. And the club’s prized asset, Eden Hazard, chose to remain at Stamford Bridge despite interest from all across Europe.

As for the opposition. Yes, nobody is shocked Manchester City are going to win the league. They deserve it, and are streaks ahead of the chasing pack, in both quality and attitude.

Yet for those in-and-around the top four, Liverpool are the only other team to have improved drastically. Arsenal have regressed in disastrous fashion, while Tottenham too have taken a step-backwards from last season when they pushed Chelsea to the wire. Even Manchester United, whose results have without doubt improved, look no more of a promising prospect than they did last year – Romelu Lukaku’s goals have been the only major difference to Jose Mourinho’s eye-wateringly boring side.

So fingers can be pointed, but perhaps self-reflection is what is required instead.

Negativity is contagious, and can spread like a wildfire. Just ask Jose Mourinho, he will know that more well than most from his two spells at Stamford Bridge.

That can be negativity in the way you speak of your players. Insisting your squad is not good enough will only prove to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, where they begin to believe they are inadequate – something that has become apparent in the club’s performances since the turn of the year.

It can be negativity in the way you approach games. Sunday’s defeat at The Etihad was a prime example. Setting up with no striker, nine men behind the ball and with Eden Hazard as a false-nine against a side which your club should be competing with is setting up to lose.

Hazard agrees: “We could have played on for three hours and I wouldn’t touch a ball. Only at the end it went better: in the last 10-15 minutes we had more possession. But we should have tried to do that all game.” The Belgian cut a frustrated figure following the weekend’s humiliating defeat.

Lastly, negativity can be the way you view the world, the people around you and even yourself. In the space of a year, a man who looked like he’d be no place rather in the world than stood on the touchline at Stamford Bridge, now looks a man looking for the nearest exit door.

So, Mr Conte, point fingers all you like. However libelling everybody else and choosing to instead focus on what you don’t have rather than what you do is a recipe for disaster and will only end one way.

Leave now, or instead choose to take thy fingers and point them in the mirror before it is too late.

Yours sincerely,

A joyless Chelsea fan.