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Although The London club didn’t completely torpedo their prospects of finishing in the highest eight places of the Bigger Cup group stage, they performed a targeted blow on their own chances of automatically qualifying for the knockout stages. Naturally, the silver lining is that in the short one-year history of the new and not-necessarily-improved competition, achieving a top-eight finish isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Core Concern: A Predictable Lack of Consistency

Sadly for Stamford Bridge regulars, the only consistent thing about Enzo Maresca’s side is a monotonously predictable inconsistency, which has been widely discussed since their loss in Italy. Since apparently rubber-stamping their credentials with an commanding victory of a European giant, and then a bad-tempered draw with a London rival, the team have been defeated 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 eager to point the finger on a selection policy that appears to see the coach rotate his team constantly, the Chelsea head coach maintains that, injuries and suspensions aside, the nucleus of his starting lineup for big matches is mostly fixed.

“I think in that game, first XI, we had inside the pitch the majority of the team that play against Spurs, they play against Barca, they played against Wolves, the Gunners,” he droned. “There were most of the regulars that are the ones playing every time for matches of this magnitude. So if you look at the five changes that we did compared to previous game, it’s a different situation.”

What Comes Next

For a genuine opportunity of avoiding the additional knockout round, Chelsea will have to be victorious in their final two group games. First up, they host this season’s surprise package a Cypriot team, then travel back to the continent to face the Italian title holders, Napoli.

“Victories in both are required, if not, we will face the extra round and then progress to the following stage,” sniffed Maresca, whose next appointment is a match against an Everton team whose current form has taken to 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 becoming a professional golfer. 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.

Readers' Letters

“So, no wonder Wolverhampton Wanderers are in such a poor situation. As any longtime reader of this column will know, the only good pre-match protests involve marching 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” – a correspondent.

“I note that a reader not only got Tuesday’s featured letter, but also a name check in another reader's letter. On a night where both Sheffield teams once more dropped points after leading, I am led to ponder: could the city be proving that the regularity of appearances in your mailbag is inversely related to the value of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – another fan.