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Although The London club didn’t completely torpedo their chances of finishing in the top eight of the European competition opening phase, they performed a targeted blow on their own hopes of waltzing straight into the knockout stages. Of course, the good news is that in the brief history of the recently revamped competition, achieving a top-eight finish may not be as crucial as it seems.

The Central Problem: A Monotonous Lack of Consistency

Sadly for Stamford Bridge regulars, the only consistent thing about the Chelsea team is a monotonously predictable lack of consistency, which has been much remarked upon following their loss in Bergamo. Since apparently rubber-stamping their credentials with an commanding victory of Barcelona, followed by a feisty stalemate with a London rival, Chelsea have been stuffed by Leeds, played out a snoozy stalemate 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 selection policy that appears to see Enzo Maresca change his lineup like a kebab shop’s elephant leg of doner meat, the Chelsea head coach insists that, injuries and suspensions aside, the core of his starting lineup for games against strong opposition is mostly fixed.

“In my view in that game, first XI, we had inside the pitch eight, nine players that featured against Tottenham, they play against Barca, they play against Wolverhampton, Arsenal,” he droned. “There were eight, nine players that are the ones consistently selected for these kind of games. So if you see the several alterations that we did from the previous game, it’s a different situation.”

The Path Forward

To have any realistic chance of avoiding the additional knockout round, Chelsea 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 Italian title holders, Napoli.

“We need to win both, if not, we will face the extra round and then progress to the following stage,” sniffed the Italian coach, whose following fixture is a match against an Merseyside team whose recent consistency has taken to them to the dizzy heights of the top half in the Premier League.

Side Stories

Quote of the Day: “You know, it’s actually funny because his greatest wish was me turning pro in golf. That was his biggest dream. So when I was 10, he forced me to take up golf. So I practiced every week from when I was 10 to 13” – a star striker revealed how, if his father had his preference, he could have been on the golf course rather than scoring goals in the top flight.

Readers' Letters

“So, no wonder Wolves are in such a sad state. As any longtime reader of this email will know, the only good pre-match protests involve marching from a pub 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” – a correspondent.

“I see that a reader not only got Tuesday’s featured letter, but also a name check in a separate letter. On a night where both Sheffield teams once more dropped points after leading, I am led to ponder: could Sheffield be proving that the regularity of appearances in your letters section is inversely proportional to the value of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – another fan.