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While The London club didn’t completely torpedo their chances of ending up in the highest eight places of the European competition group stage, they performed a precise, surgical strike on their own hopes of automatically qualifying for the knockout stages. Of course, the silver lining is that in the short one-year history of the new and not-necessarily-improved tournament, securing a top-eight finish may not be as crucial as it seems.

The Core Concern: A Predictable Lack of Consistency

Unfortunately for the club's supporters, the sole predictable element about Enzo Maresca’s side is a reliably erratic inconsistency, which has been widely discussed following their defeat in Bergamo. Since apparently rubber-stamping their quality with an commanding victory of Barcelona, followed by a feisty stalemate with a London rival, Chelsea have been defeated by Leeds, played out a dull draw at Bournemouth and have now lost against a mid-table side from Serie A.

Although pundits have been eager to point the finger on a team selection approach that appears to see the coach change his lineup like a kebab shop’s elephant leg of doner meat, the Chelsea head coach insists that, knack and naughty step permitting, the nucleus of his first eleven for big matches is largely set in stone.

“I think in that game, first XI, we had on the field eight, nine players that featured against Spurs, they played against Barca, they played against Wolves, the Gunners,” he stated. “There were most of the regulars that are the ones playing every time for these kind of games. So if you see the five changes 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 remaining two matches. In the first, they welcome this season’s surprise package Pafos, before heading back to the continent to face the Serie A champions, Napoli.

“Victories in both are required, if not, we try to play the extra round and then go to the following stage,” sniffed Maresca, whose following fixture is a match against an Everton team whose current form has propelled them to the surprising position of seventh in the Premier League.

Side Stories

Notable Comment: “You know, 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 start on golf. So I practiced every week from when I was 10 to 13” – a star striker explained how, if his father had his preference, he could have been teeing off rather than scoring goals in the top flight.

Readers' Letters

“So, no wonder Wolverhampton Wanderers are in such a poor situation. As any longtime reader of this column will know, the only effective pre-match protests involve marching from a pub that the supporters planned to be at 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 one correspondent not only got the previous featured letter, but also a name check in a separate letter. On a night where both clubs from Sheffield once more dropped points after leading, I am led to ponder: could Sheffield be proving that the regularity of representation in your letters section is inversely related to the value of anything our teams are achieving on the field?” – another fan.