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Although The London club avoided a total demolition of their chances of ending up in the highest eight places of the continental tournament opening phase, they executed a targeted blow on their own hopes of strolling directly into the round of 16. Of course, the good news is that in the short one-year history of the recently revamped competition, securing a top-eight finish isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Core Issue: A Predictable Lack of Consistency

Sadly for the club's supporters, the sole predictable element about Enzo Maresca’s side is a monotonously predictable inconsistency, which has been much remarked upon following their loss in Bergamo. After apparently rubber-stamping their credentials with an impressive beat-down of Barcelona, and then 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 Italy's top flight.

Although pundits have been eager to point the finger on a selection policy that appears to see the coach change his lineup like a kebab shop’s elephant leg of doner meat, the manager maintains that, knack and naughty step permitting, the core of his first eleven for games against strong opposition is largely set in stone.

“In my view tonight, starting team, we had inside the pitch the majority of the team that featured against Tottenham, they play against Barca, they played against Wolves, 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 several alterations that we did from the Bournemouth game, it’s a different situation.”

The Path Forward

For a genuine opportunity of escaping the additional knockout round, they will have to be victorious in their remaining two matches. In the first, they host the unexpected contenders a Cypriot team, then travel back to Italy to face the Serie A champions, Napoli.

“We need to win both, otherwise, we will face the extra round and then progress to the next round,” remarked the Italian coach, whose next appointment is a game against an Merseyside team whose current form has propelled them to the dizzy heights of seventh in the domestic league.

Other Notes

Notable Comment: “It's interesting, it’s somewhat ironic 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 played golf 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

“Well, no wonder Wolves are in such a poor situation. As any longtime reader of this email will know, the only effective pre-match protests involve walking from a pub that the supporters intended to visit 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” – one reader.

“I see that one correspondent not only got Tuesday’s featured letter, but also a mention in another reader's letter. On a night where both Sheffield teams again surrendered points after leading, I am wondering: could Sheffield be proving that the regularity of representation in your mailbag is inversely related to the success of anything our teams are achieving on the field?” – a different supporter.