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Although Chelsea avoided a total demolition of their hopes of ending up in the top eight of the continental tournament opening phase, they executed a precise, surgical strike on their own hopes of waltzing straight into the knockout stages. Of course, the silver lining is that in the brief history of the recently revamped tournament, securing a top-eight finish may not be as crucial as it seems.

The Core Problem: A Monotonous Inconsistency

Unfortunately 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. After seemingly confirming their quality with an commanding victory of a European giant, followed by a bad-tempered draw with a London rival, the team have been stuffed by a Championship side, played out a snoozy stalemate at Bournemouth and have now been beaten by a mid-table side from Italy's top flight.

While critics have been quick to lay the blame on a team selection approach that appears 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 nucleus of his first eleven for games against strong opposition is largely set in stone.

“In my view in that game, first XI, we had on the field the majority of the team that featured against Spurs, they played against Barcelona, they play against Wolverhampton, the Gunners,” he droned. “There were eight, nine players that are the ones playing every time 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 additional knockout round, Chelsea will have to win their remaining two matches. In the first, they welcome this season’s surprise package Pafos, then travel back to Italy to face the Serie A champions, Napoli.

“Victories in both are required, otherwise, we try to play the extra round and then progress to the next round,” sniffed Maresca, whose next appointment is a match against an Everton team whose recent consistency has taken to them to the dizzy heights of the top half in the Premier 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 on the golf course rather than scoring goals in the Premier League.

Fan Correspondence

“So, no wonder Wolverhampton Wanderers are in such a poor situation. As any regular reader of this email will know, the only effective pre-match protests involve walking from a public house that the supporters intended to visit 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 clubs from Sheffield again surrendered points after leading, I am led to ponder: could Sheffield be proving that the regularity of appearances in your mailbag is inversely proportional to the value of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – a different supporter.