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While The London club didn’t completely torpedo their hopes of finishing in the top eight of the Bigger Cup group stage, they performed a targeted blow on their own hopes of waltzing straight into the knockout stages. Naturally, the good news is that in the brief history of the new and not-necessarily-improved competition, securing a top-eight finish isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Central Concern: A Monotonous Inconsistency

Unfortunately for Stamford Bridge regulars, the only consistent thing about the Chelsea team is a reliably erratic lack of consistency, which has been widely discussed since their defeat in Italy. Since apparently rubber-stamping their credentials with an commanding victory of Barcelona, and then a bad-tempered draw with a London rival, the team have been stuffed by a Championship side, played out a snoozy stalemate at the south coast club and have now been beaten by a mid-table side from Italy's top flight.

Although pundits have been quick to lay the blame on a team selection approach that appears to see the coach change his lineup like a kebab shop’s elephant leg of doner meat, the Chelsea head coach maintains that, injuries and suspensions aside, the core of his first eleven for games against strong opposition is largely set in stone.

“In my view tonight, starting team, we had inside the pitch eight, nine players that featured against Tottenham, they play against Barca, they play against Wolverhampton, 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 several alterations that we did compared to Bournemouth game, it’s different.”

What Comes Next

To have any realistic chance of escaping the additional knockout round, Chelsea will have to win their remaining two matches. In the first, they welcome this season’s surprise package a Cypriot team, before heading back to the continent to face the Italian title holders, the Neapolitan side.

“Victories in both are required, otherwise, we will face the extra round and then go to the next round,” sniffed Maresca, whose next appointment is a game against an Merseyside team whose recent consistency has propelled them to the dizzy heights of seventh in the Premier League.

Other Notes

Notable Comment: “You know, 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 played golf every week from when I was 10 to 13” – a star striker revealed how, if his father had his preference, he could have been teeing off rather than scoring goals in the Premier League.

Readers' Letters

“So, no wonder Wolverhampton Wanderers are in such a poor situation. 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 always going to. Just arriving 10 minutes late? That’s how long it takes fans to get to their seats anyway” – a correspondent.

“I see that a reader not only got the previous letter o’ the day, but also a name check in a separate letter. On a night where both Sheffield teams once more surrendered points after leading, I am wondering: could Sheffield be proving that the frequency of appearances in your mailbag is inversely proportional to the value of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – a different supporter.