Chelsea's stuttering Premier League form continued on Monday evening as they were held to a 1-1 draw by Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge.
The Blues held a one-goal lead at half time thanks to Olivier Giroud's header but were pegged back just five minutes into the second half by Anwar El Ghazi, who made the most of some slack Chelsea defending to earn Dean Smith's side a point and extend their unbeaten run to five matches.
For Chelsea, though, it means they have now won just one of their last five league matches, meaning Frank Lampard is growing under a slight sense of pressure to turn his side's fortunes around and get their top-four push back on track.
With the fixtures during the festive period continuing to come thick and fast, Lampard opted to rotate his pack, making six changes to the side that was beaten 3-1 by Arsenal on Boxing Day.
Though a point against Villa, who have massively improved since last season, is not the worst result in the world, certainly when taking their form into account, it will have frustrated Lampard, especially when they had chances to win the game.
However, Chelsea may have held on to secure all three points had centre-back Andreas Christensen, who was one of the six changes Lampard made, got back to his feet sooner after colliding with Jack Grealish.
The Danish centre-back went down after a coming together with the England midfielder and was unable to immediately return to his feet.
After those two had come together, El Ghazi picked the ball up on the left-wing, sent over a cross, which was cleared away by Antonio Rudiger, before the ball made its way back into the box for El Ghazi to volley the ball home at the back post.
The Dutchman was left with acres of space to fire the ball home at the back-post, meaning he made up for the Blues being a man light at the back, with Christensen still down on the deck.
Following the full-time whistle, former Blues skipper John Terry, who is now a coach at Villa, took to Instagram.
The former Chelsea ace wrote: "Great to be back at the Bridge tonight. Another great performance in the space of 48 hours from the boys @avfcofficial. Rest and recover now for the next game."
Terry's post was met with a comment from a Blues supporter who insisted that the former England international would have been furious if Villa had conceded a goal in such a manner with Christensen still down injured.
Terry, though, did not wish to entertain the comment, delivering a blunt and to-the-point answer.
Terry replied: "He should have got up."
Though, of course, there are no guarantees in football, had Christensen been able to continue, Chelsea may have avoided conceding El Ghazi's equaliser.
