Perhaps it was inevitable, given the record-breaking standards Edouard Mendy set, that they would be near-impossible to maintain.
The start of Chelsea’s Champions League campaign against Dinamo Zagreb this week is a timely reminder of those levels, but also the at times unbeatable, unflappable last line of defence they could do with Mendy returning to.
Just six years after he was on the dole and thinking he had no future in football, Mendy had risen remarkably up France’s football ladder to earn a 2020 move to Chelsea.
Signed to compete with Kepa Arrizabalaga, Mendy did much more than that, replacing him as the club’s first-choice and bringing some much-needed order to a position that had become unsettled.