Chelsea players are showing some seriousness in some matches but they are not consistent in their winning which is the major challenge many people are experiencing from Chelsea in this season.
Inconsistency is the major thing Chelsea and Manchester United have in common this season I honestly don't know why is actually like that because the last time was when Chelsea started making some improvement when they meet Tottenham Hotspur and win them after then they started peaking form and when they meet Manchester City we taught Manchester City could easily win them but do to how Chelsea has improve on performance they were able to draw, so after then everybody started seeing Chelsea to have peak form and however they started losing matches, so just like you said inconsistency is there major problem this season, although one of the things that kept me wonder is that Chelsea has a very quality bright players but they always find it difficult to perform well, I don't know if I will say there problem is from there players or the coach.
So far what I have seen from Chelsea is that the coach is still unable to match the abilities of the players he has. Although I admit that Pochettino has tried to continue to strengthen player relationships not only on the field but off the field. So I'm sure Chelsea will show good results from time to time. Likewise with Manchester United, apart from the goalkeeper who apparently cannot be said to be suitable, the coach Erik Ten Hag is also starting to not get full support from the players. Ten Hag went too far in suppressing training. Not only that, United fans were much more annoyed with the bad results they were getting, but gradually pressured Ten Hag to leave.
Well, maybe currently Chelsea is not better than Manchester United, but Pochettino has a better relationship with the players than Erik Ten Hag so don't be surprised that at the end of the season Chelsea's position could be above Man United.