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Although The London club avoided a total demolition of 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. 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 Issue: A Predictable Inconsistency

Sadly for the club's supporters, the only consistent thing about the Chelsea team is a reliably erratic lack of consistency, which has been much remarked upon since their defeat in Italy. After seemingly confirming their quality with an commanding victory of Barcelona, followed by a bad-tempered draw with Arsenal, Chelsea have been defeated by Leeds, played out a snoozy stalemate at the south coast club and have now been beaten by a mid-table side from Serie A.

Although critics have been eager to point the finger on a team selection approach that seems to see Enzo Maresca rotate his team constantly, the Chelsea head coach insists that, knack and naughty step permitting, the core of his first eleven for games against strong opposition is largely set in stone.

“In my view tonight, starting team, we had on the field eight, nine players that featured against Tottenham, they played against Barca, they play against Wolves, Arsenal,” he droned. “There were most of the regulars 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 Bournemouth game, it’s a different situation.”

The Path Forward

To have any realistic chance of avoiding the additional knockout round, Chelsea will have to win their final two group games. First up, they welcome the unexpected contenders a Cypriot team, then travel back to the continent to face the Serie A champions, the Neapolitan side.

“Victories in both are required, otherwise, we will face the extra round and then go to the next round,” remarked the Italian coach, whose following fixture is a game against an Merseyside team whose current form has propelled them to the dizzy heights of seventh 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 biggest dream. So when I was 10, he forced me to start on golf. So I practiced every week from when I was 10 to 13” – Erling Haaland revealed how, if his father had his preference, he could have been teeing off rather than scoring goals in the top flight.

Readers' Letters

“Well, no wonder Wolverhampton Wanderers are in such a sad state. As any regular reader of this column will know, the only effective pre-match protests involve marching from a pub that the supporters planned to be at anyway, to the stadium that they were inevitably going to. Just showing up 10 minutes late? That’s how long it takes fans to get to their seats anyway” – a correspondent.

“I note that one correspondent not only got the previous letter o’ the day, but also a name check in a separate letter. On a night where both clubs from Sheffield once more surrendered points after leading, I am led to ponder: could the city be proving that the frequency of representation in your letters section is inversely proportional to the success of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – another fan.