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While The London club didn’t completely torpedo their hopes of ending up in the highest eight places of the continental tournament group stage, they executed a targeted blow on their own chances of automatically qualifying for the knockout stages. Of course, the good news is that in the short one-year history of the new and not-necessarily-improved tournament, securing a place in the top eight isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Core Concern: A Predictable Inconsistency

Unfortunately for Stamford Bridge regulars, the sole predictable element about the Chelsea team is a monotonously predictable lack of consistency, which has been much remarked upon following their defeat in Bergamo. After seemingly confirming their quality with an impressive beat-down of a European giant, and then a bad-tempered draw with a London rival, Chelsea have been stuffed by Leeds, played out a dull draw at the south coast club and have now been beaten by a average team from Serie A.

Although critics have been eager to point the finger on a selection policy that appears to see Enzo Maresca change his lineup incessantly, the Chelsea head coach insists that, knack and naughty step permitting, the nucleus of his starting lineup for big matches is largely set in stone.

“In my view tonight, first XI, we had on the field the majority of the team that featured against Spurs, they played against Barca, they played against Wolves, Arsenal,” he stated. “We had eight, nine players that are the ones playing every time for these kind of games. So if you look at the five changes that we did compared to previous game, it’s a different situation.”

What Comes Next

For a genuine opportunity of avoiding the additional knockout round, Chelsea will have to win their remaining two matches. First up, they host the unexpected contenders Pafos, before heading back to the continent to face the Serie A champions, Napoli.

“We need to win both, otherwise, we try to play the extra round and then progress to the next round,” sniffed Maresca, whose next appointment is a match against an Everton team whose recent consistency has taken to them to the dizzy heights of the top half in the domestic league.

Other Notes

Notable Comment: “It's interesting, it’s somewhat ironic because his biggest dream was me turning pro in golf. That was his ultimate ambition. So when I was 10, he pushed me to take up golf. So I played golf every week from when I was 10 to 13” – a star striker revealed how, if his father had his preference, he could have been teeing off rather than scoring goals in the top flight.

Fan Correspondence

“So, no wonder Wolverhampton Wanderers are in such a sad state. As any longtime reader of this column will know, the only good pre-match protests involve walking from a public house that the supporters intended to visit anyway, to the stadium that they were always going to. Just showing up 10 minutes late? That’s how long it takes fans to get to their seats anyway” – one reader.

“I see that one correspondent not only got the previous letter o’ the day, but also a name check in another reader's letter. On a night where both Sheffield teams once more surrendered points after leading, I am wondering: could the city be proving that the frequency of appearances in your mailbag is inversely proportional to the value of anything our teams are achieving on the field?” – another fan.