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Although The London club didn’t completely torpedo their prospects of ending up in the top eight of the continental tournament group stage, they executed a precise, surgical strike on their own hopes of strolling directly into the knockout stages. Of course, the silver lining is that in the short one-year history of the recently revamped tournament, securing a top-eight finish may not be as crucial as it seems.

The Central Problem: A Monotonous Lack of Consistency

Sadly for the club's supporters, the sole predictable element about the Chelsea team is a monotonously predictable inconsistency, which has been widely discussed following their loss in Italy. Since apparently rubber-stamping their quality with an impressive beat-down of a European giant, followed by a feisty stalemate with a London rival, the team have been stuffed by Leeds, played out a dull draw at Bournemouth and have now lost against a mid-table side from Italy's top flight.

Although pundits have been quick to lay the blame on a selection policy that seems to see the coach rotate his team like a kebab shop’s elephant leg of doner meat, the Chelsea head coach insists that, knack and naughty step permitting, the core of his first eleven for big matches is largely set in stone.

“In my view tonight, first XI, we had inside the pitch eight, nine players that featured against Spurs, they played against Barcelona, they played against Wolverhampton, Arsenal,” he droned. “We had most of the regulars that are the ones consistently selected for these kind of games. So if you see the five changes that we did from the Bournemouth game, it’s different.”

The Path Forward

To have any realistic chance of avoiding the Bigger Cup playoff round, they will have to win their final two group games. First up, they host the unexpected contenders Pafos, then travel back to the continent to face the Italian title holders, the Neapolitan side.

“Victories in both are required, if not, we try to play the extra round and then progress to the next round,” remarked Maresca, whose following fixture is a game against an Everton team whose recent consistency has propelled them to the dizzy heights of the top half in the domestic league.

Other Notes

Notable Comment: “You know, 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 forced me to take up 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 on the golf course rather than scoring goals in the Premier League.

Fan Correspondence

“Well, no wonder Wolves are in such a sad state. As any longtime reader of this email 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 arriving 10 minutes late? That’s how long it takes fans to get to their seats anyway” – a correspondent.

“I note that one correspondent not only got the previous letter o’ the day, but also a mention in another reader's letter. On a night where both Sheffield teams again surrendered points after leading, I am led to ponder: could the city 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?” – a different supporter.