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While The Blues avoided a total demolition of their hopes of ending up in the top eight of the continental tournament group stage, they performed a precise, surgical strike on their own hopes of automatically qualifying for the knockout stages. Naturally, the silver lining is that in the short one-year history of the new and not-necessarily-improved competition, securing a top-eight finish may not be as crucial as it seems.

The Central Problem: A Predictable Lack of Consistency

Sadly for the club's supporters, the sole predictable element about Enzo Maresca’s side is a reliably erratic lack of consistency, which has been widely discussed following their loss in Italy. After apparently rubber-stamping their credentials with an impressive beat-down of a European giant, and then a bad-tempered draw with a London rival, the team have been defeated 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 quick to lay the blame on a selection policy that appears to see the coach change his lineup constantly, the Chelsea head coach insists that, injuries and suspensions aside, the core of his starting lineup for games against strong opposition is mostly fixed.

“I think in that game, first XI, we had inside the pitch the majority of the team that play against Tottenham, they played against Barcelona, they played against Wolverhampton, the Gunners,” he stated. “There were most of the regulars that are the ones consistently selected for these kind of games. So if you see the several alterations that we did compared to Bournemouth game, it’s a different situation.”

What Comes Next

For a genuine opportunity of avoiding the Bigger Cup playoff round, they will have to be victorious in their final two group games. In the first, they host this season’s surprise package a Cypriot team, before heading back to Italy to face the Serie A champions, Napoli.

“We need to win both, if not, we will face the playoff and then progress to the next round,” sniffed the Italian coach, whose next appointment is a match against an Everton team whose current form has taken to them to the surprising position of seventh in the domestic league.

Other Notes

Notable Comment: “It's interesting, it’s actually funny because his biggest dream was me turning pro in golf. That was his biggest dream. So when I was 10, he pushed me to start on golf. So I played golf every week from when I was 10 to 13” – a star striker revealed how, had his dad got his way, he could have been teeing off rather than scoring goals in the Premier League.

Fan Correspondence

“Well, no wonder Wolverhampton Wanderers are in such a sad state. As any regular reader of this column will know, the only good pre-match protests involve walking from a pub that the supporters intended to visit anyway, to the stadium that they were inevitably 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 a reader not only got Tuesday’s featured letter, but also a mention in a separate letter. On a night where both clubs from Sheffield once more dropped points after leading, I am led to ponder: could the city be proving that the frequency of representation in your mailbag is inversely related to the success of anything our teams are achieving on the field?” – another fan.