Chelsea face crunch match at West Ham
Interim manager knows he has little leeway to get Chelsea back on track after successive scoreless draws, so victory over West Ham is a must
Rafael Benitez needs no reminder, but the statistics are mounting up to confirm the scale of the task confronting the interim manager as he attempts to revive Chelsea's season.
Successive scoreless draws mean Benitez joins Avram Grant as the only Blues managers to fail to win either of their first two Premier League games under Roman Abramovich.
Those results extended a run that has seen Chelsea fail to win any of their past six league games, leaving them in third position in the table, seven points behind leaders Manchester United.
And while the figures sum up the state of a team in a rut, Fernando Torres' Premier League goal-drought, that now runs to almost 11 hours, highlights a player enduring another individual nightmare.
Little wonder, then, that Chelsea's trip across London to face West Ham at Upton Park today will carry much more significance than is normally attached to the fixture.
"We have to keep going forward, look at the positive things and win the games and fight, fight, in each game," said Chelsea midfielder Oriol Romeu, who completed his first 90 minutes of the season in the midweek draw with Fulham.