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While The London club didn't entirely destroy their hopes of ending up in the highest eight places of the continental tournament group stage, 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 short one-year history of the new and not-necessarily-improved competition, achieving a place in the top eight isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Central Concern: A Predictable Inconsistency

Sadly for the club's supporters, the only consistent thing about Enzo Maresca’s side is a reliably erratic lack of consistency, which has been much remarked upon since their defeat in Italy. Since apparently rubber-stamping their quality with an commanding victory of a European giant, followed by a bad-tempered draw with Arsenal, Chelsea have been defeated by Leeds, played out a dull draw at Bournemouth and have now been beaten by a average team from Serie A.

Although pundits have been quick to lay the blame on a selection policy that appears to see the coach change his lineup incessantly, the Chelsea head coach maintains that, injuries and suspensions aside, the core of his starting lineup for big matches is mostly fixed.

“I think in that game, first XI, we had on the field eight, nine players that play against Tottenham, they played against Barca, they played against Wolverhampton, Arsenal,” he stated. “There were most of the regulars that are the ones consistently selected for matches of this magnitude. So if you look at the several alterations that we did compared to previous game, it’s a different situation.”

What Comes Next

For a genuine opportunity of escaping the additional knockout round, they will have to win their remaining two matches. In the first, they host this season’s surprise package Pafos, then travel back to Italy to face the Serie A champions, the Neapolitan side.

“Victories in both are required, otherwise, we try to play the extra round and then go to the following stage,” remarked the Italian coach, whose next appointment is a game against an Everton team whose current form has propelled them to the surprising position of the top half in the Premier League.

Other Notes

Notable Comment: “You know, it’s somewhat ironic because his biggest dream was me becoming a professional golfer. 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” – Erling Haaland revealed how, if his father had his preference, he could have been teeing off rather than scoring goals in the top flight.

Readers' Letters

“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 marching from a public house that the supporters planned to be at anyway, to the ground 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 frequency of representation in your letters section is inversely related to the success of anything our teams are achieving on the field?” – another fan.