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While The Blues didn't entirely destroy their chances of ending up in the highest eight places of the Bigger Cup group stage, they executed a targeted blow on their own hopes of automatically qualifying for the knockout stages. Naturally, the silver lining is that in the brief history of the recently revamped tournament, achieving a place in the top eight isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Central Concern: A Predictable Inconsistency

Sadly for Stamford Bridge regulars, the only consistent thing about the Chelsea team is a monotonously predictable inconsistency, which has been much remarked upon following their loss in Bergamo. After seemingly confirming their quality with an commanding victory of a European giant, and then a bad-tempered draw with a London rival, the team have been stuffed by a Championship side, played out a dull draw at Bournemouth and have now lost against a mid-table side from Italy's top flight.

While pundits have been eager to point the finger on a team selection approach that appears to see Enzo Maresca rotate his team constantly, the Chelsea head coach insists that, injuries and suspensions aside, the core of his starting lineup for games against strong opposition is largely set in stone.

“In my view tonight, first XI, we had inside the pitch the majority of the team that featured against Tottenham, they play against Barcelona, they play against Wolverhampton, Arsenal,” he stated. “There were most of the regulars that are the ones playing every time for matches of this magnitude. So if you see 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 remaining two matches. In the first, they host the unexpected contenders a Cypriot team, then travel back to Italy 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 progress to the next round,” sniffed Maresca, whose following fixture is a game against an Merseyside team whose current form has propelled them to the dizzy heights of seventh in the Premier League.

Side Stories

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 practiced every week from when I was 10 to 13” – a star striker revealed how, if his father had his preference, he could have been on the golf course rather than tearing it up in the top flight.

Fan Correspondence

“Well, no wonder Wolves are in such a sad state. As any regular reader of this email will know, the only effective pre-match protests involve walking from a public house that the supporters planned to be at 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 one correspondent not only got Tuesday’s featured letter, but also a name check in a separate letter. On a night where both Sheffield teams once more dropped points after leading, I am led to ponder: could Sheffield be proving that the frequency of representation in your letters section is inversely related to the success of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – another fan.