They are fourth in the table with the third-best goal difference and just over a fortnight ago beat Manchester City 2-0 at Stamford Bridge. Yet there is a level of anxiety at Chelsea. It seems out of step with where they are.

Rather than note that last season Chelsea finished fifth, 30 points off Manchester City, and that Maurizio Sarri has had six months in charge, during which he has overseen some vibrant winning football, plenty of Chelsea fans say, yes, but the team has lost three of the last six in the league and are now as long as 125/1 to win it.

Winning the Premier League this season, however, was not Sarri’s brief when he was brought in to succeed Antonio Conte. Sarri’s aim was to re-energise a Chelsea squad that subsided in the second half of last season – when they were reigning champions – get back into the Champions League and to play a brand of football that appeals to the owner Roman Abramovich and suits the players in the squad.

Sarri is on course to achieve this – it is not his fault that Liverpool are charging, 11 points ahead of the Blues. Chelsea are seven points off City which is perhaps a better measurement of progress under Sarri.

Chelsea would, moreover, have been the first team to beat Liverpool in the league but for Daniel Sturridge’s stunning 89th-minute equaliser at Stamford Bridge in September. The Blues had won at Anfield, thrillingly, three days before in the League Cup. It is a trophy they may yet collect.

But a 1-0 loss to Leicester City on Saturday meant that a curious pessimism raced to the top of the agenda. The fact it was Chelsea’s first home defeat of the season became more important than the manner of it – Chelsea hit the woodwork twice and squandered other chances.

Then Sarri’s post-match comments about “mental confusion” did not soothe anyone, particularly supporters already fidgety about the positioning of Chelsea’s two main players – Eden Hazard and N’Golo Kante.

That Hazard has 12 goals this season, compared to 17 for the whole of last season, would suggest that Sarri’s deployment of him in a narrower, more forward role than before is bringing a dividend. Yet it is hard to argue with the premise that Hazard looks most comfortable when dropping deep and cutting in from the flanks.

But then Sarri may feel compelled to alter Hazard’s location due to Alvaro Morata’s ongoing issues. Chelsea’s centre forward has five league goals in a side that has scored 35 and missed many others. Olivier Giroud, bought for £18m last January, has one.

Diego Costa is still missed down the Bridge 18 months after he forced his way out of the club.

Those are goalscoring details a manager cannot ignore. Plus, we must assume Sarri was hired on the basis of his most recent work – at Napoli.

If that stylish Neapolitan flow is what Chelsea desire at Stamford Bridge – and Carlo Ancelotti revealed in his book that one of Abramovich’s first comments to him when he was being interviewed for the job was: “I want Chelsea’s style of play to be recognized around the world” – then Sarri must be trusted. Six months is nothing. But Hazard’s positioning is certainly creating questions in the stands, although not as many as Kante’s. The World Cup winner remains in midfield, just not at the base of it where, as was pointed out on Saturday, he might have prevented the ball getting to Leicester’s scorer Jamie Vardy.

Sarri prefers Jorginho to Kante in that defensive position and it does not appear to be up for debate. There are other fans’ worries – the in-and-out form of Willian and Pedro among them. It means a surprising nervousness will accompany Chelsea to Watford today and then to Crystal Palace on Saturday.

Chelsea lost 4-1 at Watford in February, having just lost 3-0 at home to Bournemouth. Things had started to unravel under Conte. There has not been anything like those results under Sarri, which is why some of this blue angst is puzzling.

But it is real, and the memory of the second half of last season will not be reassuring those fans who know there are trips to Arsenal, City, Liverpool and Manchester United to come. Bearing that in mind, Sarri squeezing Chelsea back into the top four might look a bigger achievement in May than it does currently.

Chelsea’s current affairs then will be intriguing, because even today there are those discussing Sarri’s permanence.

That is based partly on Abramovich’s history with managers at the club – Sarri is his 13th permanent appointment. So 2019 will be a test of Abramovich, too, and a rare public comment of his from 2006: “The trophy at the end is less important that the process itself.”