There are some defeats you can analyse and try to come out of it with some positives, but there are some you really just want to forget about. Sadly you can’t do that if you are a player or a manager, you have to find out what the problems were and try to come up with some solutions, and you have to do it pretty quickly.

• Tuchel gives his verdict on what went wrong at Elland Road

• Watch the key moments for our loss at Leeds

• The stats and tactical talking points from Sunday's defeat

All losses are painful but a 3-0 defeat at Leeds is arguably more painful than most. Considering the quality, the energy and the fight that was on show by Chelsea against Tottenham the week before, it is hard to get your head around the Elland Road collapse. Most of the time as a player you just want to get back out there and rectify it as soon as possible, but with no midweek game that isn’t going to be possible.

Certainly Thomas Tuchel will be working doubly hard on the training ground to make sure this wobble is only that and doesn’t have a long-term effect. There is also the possibility, however, that in the long term this defeat could be seen in a positive light, but only in the fact that some of the deficiencies can be fixed before the transfer window closes.

What didn’t help on the day was having two of our central midfielders out injured. Losing N’Golo Kante would affect any side but having no Mateo Kovacic to slip in there in his place made it all the more difficult to cope with. Even so, there is a good-sized squad and somehow you have to manage when key players are missing. Every club has to deal with that.

It was intriguing to be at Elland Road and see what was happening off the ball this time. I thought that Thiago Silva had spotted a problem just before Leeds got their opener. In fact I have rarely seen the Brazilian more animated, as he tried valiantly to quickly reorganise what was around him. He seemed to have a sixth sense and knew there was severe danger. Within 10 minutes we were 2-0 down and the look on his face told the whole story – he couldn’t adapt it quickly enough.

In the second half the boss tried to change the tactics, the 3-4-3 became more like a 4-2-2-2 and then it was a diamond in midfield when Hakim Ziyech entered the fray. He tried a multitude of systems, but at no point did it seem that any one of them was going to get us back into the game. Play whatever system you like, but when it is a bad day at the office, then it’s a bad day at the office.

So this week will be hard going for the team and it wasn’t made any easier by losing Kalidou Koulibaly to a second yellow card late on. The club hasn’t tried to keep secret that it is attempting to get a bit more strength in depth back there, right now that does seem like a serious priority. I had a discussion on air with Alan Shearer before the game and, while he thought a centre forward was the priority, I said I was more inclined to look at the back line.

One of the difficulties is that Reece James is currently playing as one of the three centre-backs and, while he was exceptional against Spurs, in this tough assignment away from home the opportunities to raid forward in the first half were severely limited because of the deep starting position. Losing Reece’s quality attacking down the right-hand side is sub-optimal to say the least, but I am pretty sure the boss would prefer to get him on the right of a midfield four as often as possible, if and when the squad allows it.

In the end, however, it is just three points and a win at the weekend against Leicester which will remove some of the bitter taste, but that will not be easy.

Watching the Premier League over the first few weeks of the season has been interesting in that a new question must now be asked, are we going into a new era? Teams that might have been ultra-cautious before now appear to have decided to be much more positive. Brentford weren’t a bad side, but when they smelled the first sign of weakness against Manchester United they were clinical. They were also fearless, well drilled, incredibly fit and tactically astute.

Brighton similarly seem to have dumped any remnants of an inferiority complex they may have had in the past. Leeds asked us newer and different questions than they did last season and even Newcastle United seemed to have failed to get the memo that everyone has to be scared to bits of Manchester City. Liverpool were very lucky in the end to scrape a point against Crystal Palace, who nearly won at Anfield, even if it would have been a bit of a smash and grab, but it was a smash and grab that had been planned magnificently.

Clearly the Premier League season has started with a lack of respect for what has been the old order and if you stand back a bit, maybe this is a good thing in the long term. What it does mean is that there will be precious few games that you can turn up to and expect to win at half pace.

Maybe pace is a big part of it. All the ‘smaller’ teams mentioned above have looked super-fit and willing to chase, harry and close down for the majority of the games. To do that you have to have the previously mentioned organisation and fitness, but you also must have that innate hunger and willingness to go through those pain barriers and red lines week after week.

Time will tell if they can keep it up, but with five subs allowed now, there is a better chance than ever to make this high-energy football last well into the season. There was an original thought that the five subs would help the bigger, wealthier clubs with their deep squads, but that is offset by the fact that most of them have European football and will be stretched further.

So maybe these extreme results will become more, rather than less, common. If that is the case then City and Liverpool might not run away with the league this time. Painful though this weekend was for Chelsea, it might just be the start of one of the most intriguing campaigns for a long time.