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While Chelsea didn’t completely torpedo their prospects of ending up in the highest eight places of the European competition opening phase, they executed a targeted blow on their own chances of waltzing straight into the knockout stages. Of course, the silver lining is that in the brief history of the recently revamped tournament, achieving a place in the top eight may not be as crucial as it seems.

The Core Concern: A Monotonous Lack of Consistency

Unfortunately for Stamford Bridge regulars, the only consistent thing about the Chelsea team is a monotonously predictable inconsistency, which has been much remarked upon since their defeat in Bergamo. After apparently rubber-stamping their credentials with an impressive beat-down of a European giant, and then a bad-tempered draw with a London rival, Chelsea have been defeated by a Championship side, played out a dull draw 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 seems to see the coach rotate his team like a kebab shop’s elephant leg of doner meat, the Chelsea head coach insists that, injuries and suspensions aside, the core of his first eleven for big matches is largely set in stone.

“In my view in that game, starting team, we had inside the pitch eight, nine players that play against Spurs, they play against Barca, they play against Wolverhampton, Arsenal,” he stated. “We had eight, nine players that are the ones playing every time for these kind of games. So if you look at the several alterations that we did compared to previous game, it’s a different situation.”

The Path Forward

To have any realistic chance of escaping the additional knockout round, Chelsea will have to win their remaining two matches. First up, they welcome this season’s surprise package Pafos, before heading back to the continent to face the Serie A champions, the Neapolitan side.

“We need to win both, if not, we try to play the extra round and then go to the next round,” remarked Maresca, whose next appointment is a match against an Everton team whose current form has propelled them to the dizzy heights of the top half in the domestic league.

Other Notes

Notable Comment: “It's interesting, it’s actually funny 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 on the golf course rather than tearing it up in the Premier League.

Readers' Letters

“So, no wonder Wolves are in such a poor situation. As any regular reader of this column will know, the only good pre-match protests involve marching from a public house that the supporters intended to visit anyway, to the stadium that they were always 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 letter o’ the day, but also a name check in another reader's letter. On a night where both Sheffield teams again dropped points after leading, I am led to ponder: 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.