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Although The London club avoided a total demolition of their prospects of ending up in the top eight of the European competition opening phase, they performed a precise, surgical strike on their own chances of strolling directly into the knockout stages. Of course, 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 Central Concern: A Predictable Lack of Consistency

Unfortunately for the club's supporters, the sole predictable element about Enzo Maresca’s side is a reliably erratic inconsistency, which has been much remarked upon following their defeat in Bergamo. After apparently rubber-stamping their credentials with an commanding victory of Barcelona, and then a feisty stalemate with Arsenal, the team have been stuffed by a Championship side, played out a snoozy stalemate at the south coast club and have now lost against a average team from Italy's top flight.

Although pundits have been eager to point the finger on a selection policy that seems to see the coach change his lineup constantly, the manager insists that, knack and naughty step permitting, the core of his starting lineup for games against strong opposition is largely set in stone.

“I think tonight, starting team, we had on the field the majority of the team that play against Spurs, they play against Barcelona, they play against Wolverhampton, Arsenal,” he droned. “There were most of the regulars that are the ones playing every time for matches of this magnitude. So if you see the five changes that we did compared to Bournemouth game, it’s a different situation.”

The Path Forward

To have any realistic chance of escaping the additional knockout round, Chelsea will have to be victorious in their remaining two matches. In the first, they host this season’s surprise package a Cypriot team, before heading back to Italy to face the Italian title holders, Napoli.

“We need to win both, if not, we will face the extra round and then go to the next round,” remarked the Italian coach, whose next appointment is a match against an Merseyside team whose recent consistency has propelled them to the surprising position of the top half in the domestic league.

Other Notes

Notable Comment: “You know, it’s somewhat ironic because his biggest dream was me turning pro in golf. That was his ultimate ambition. So when I was 10, he forced me to start on golf. So I played golf every week from when I was 10 to 13” – Erling Haaland explained 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 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 ground 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 a reader not only got Tuesday’s letter o’ the day, but also a name check in a separate letter. On a night where both clubs from Sheffield once more dropped points after leading, I am wondering: could the city be proving that the frequency of representation in your mailbag is inversely related to the success of anything our teams are achieving on the field?” – a different supporter.