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Although Chelsea didn't entirely destroy their hopes of finishing in the top eight of the European competition group stage, they performed a precise, surgical strike on their own chances of waltzing straight into the knockout stages. Naturally, the good news is that in the brief history of the recently revamped competition, securing a place in the top eight isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Core Issue: A Monotonous Inconsistency

Sadly for the club's supporters, the only consistent thing about the Chelsea team is a reliably erratic inconsistency, which has been much remarked upon since their defeat in Italy. After seemingly confirming their credentials with an impressive beat-down of Barcelona, and then a feisty stalemate with Arsenal, Chelsea have been stuffed by a Championship side, played out a dull draw at the south coast club and have now lost against a average team from Italy's top flight.

Although critics have been eager to point the finger on a team selection approach that appears to see Enzo Maresca change his lineup like a kebab shop’s elephant leg of doner meat, the manager maintains that, knack and naughty step permitting, the nucleus of his first eleven for games against strong opposition is mostly fixed.

“In my view in that game, starting team, we had inside the pitch the majority of the team that play against Spurs, they played against Barcelona, they play against Wolves, the Gunners,” he stated. “We had eight, nine players that are the ones consistently selected for matches of this magnitude. So if you see the five changes that we did compared to previous 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 final two group games. In the first, they welcome this season’s surprise package Pafos, then travel back to Italy to face the Italian title holders, the Neapolitan side.

“We need to win both, if not, we will face the extra round and then progress to the next round,” sniffed the Italian coach, whose following fixture is a match against an Merseyside team whose current form has propelled them to the surprising position of the top half in the Premier League.

Other Notes

Quote of the Day: “It's interesting, it’s actually funny because his greatest wish was me becoming a professional golfer. That was his ultimate ambition. So when I was 10, he pushed me to take up golf. So I practiced every week from when I was 10 to 13” – a star striker explained how, if his father had his preference, 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 sad state. As any regular reader of this column will know, the only good pre-match protests involve walking from a public house that the supporters planned to be at anyway, to the stadium 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 one correspondent 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 again dropped points after leading, I am led to ponder: could the city be proving that the frequency of appearances in your letters section is inversely proportional to the success of anything our teams are achieving on the field?” – a different supporter.