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Although The London club didn’t completely torpedo their hopes of ending up in the top eight of the continental tournament group stage, they performed a targeted blow on their own chances of strolling directly into the knockout stages. Naturally, the good news is that in the brief history of the new and not-necessarily-improved competition, achieving a top-eight finish isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Core Concern: A Monotonous Inconsistency

Unfortunately for Stamford Bridge regulars, the only consistent thing about the Chelsea team is a monotonously predictable lack of consistency, which has been widely discussed since their loss in Italy. After seemingly confirming their credentials with an commanding victory of a European giant, and then a feisty stalemate with a London rival, the team have been stuffed by a Championship side, played out a snoozy stalemate at the south coast club and have now been beaten by a average team from Italy's top flight.

While pundits have been eager to point the finger on a selection policy that appears to see the coach rotate his team constantly, the manager maintains that, injuries and suspensions aside, the core of his first eleven for big matches is mostly fixed.

“I think in that game, starting team, we had on the field the majority of the team that featured against Tottenham, they play against Barcelona, they play against Wolves, the Gunners,” he droned. “There were eight, nine players that are the ones consistently selected for these kind of games. So if you look at the several alterations that we did from the previous game, it’s different.”

The Path Forward

For a genuine opportunity of escaping the Bigger Cup playoff round, Chelsea will have to win their remaining two matches. First up, they welcome this season’s surprise package Pafos, then travel back to Italy to face the Italian title holders, Napoli.

“Victories in both are required, if not, we try to play the extra round and then progress to the following stage,” sniffed the Italian coach, whose next appointment is a match against an Merseyside team whose current form has propelled them to the dizzy heights of the top half in the domestic league.

Side Stories

Notable Comment: “It's interesting, it’s actually funny because his biggest dream was me becoming a professional golfer. 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 revealed how, had his dad got his way, he could have been teeing off rather than tearing it up in the Premier League.

Fan Correspondence

“So, 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 marching from a public house that the supporters planned to be at 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 note that one correspondent not only got Tuesday’s featured letter, but also a mention in another reader's letter. On a night where both clubs from Sheffield once more surrendered points after leading, I am wondering: could Sheffield be proving that the frequency of appearances in your letters section is inversely related to the success of anything our teams are achieving on the field?” – a different supporter.