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Although The London club avoided a total demolition of their hopes of ending up in the highest eight places of the European competition group stage, they executed a precise, surgical strike on their own hopes of waltzing straight into the round of 16. Of course, the silver lining is that in the short one-year history of the new and not-necessarily-improved tournament, securing a place in the top eight may not be as crucial as it seems.

The Core Issue: A Monotonous Inconsistency

Unfortunately for the club's supporters, the sole predictable element about Enzo Maresca’s side is a monotonously predictable lack of consistency, which has been much remarked upon following their defeat in Italy. Since apparently rubber-stamping their quality with an commanding victory of a European giant, followed by a feisty stalemate with a London rival, the team have been defeated by a Championship side, played out a snoozy stalemate at Bournemouth and have now lost against a mid-table side from Serie A.

Although pundits have been eager to point the finger on a selection policy that appears to see Enzo Maresca rotate his team like a kebab shop’s elephant leg of doner meat, the Chelsea head coach maintains that, knack and naughty step permitting, the core of his first eleven for big matches is mostly fixed.

“In my view in that game, first XI, we had on the field eight, nine players that play against Tottenham, they played against Barca, they played against Wolverhampton, Arsenal,” 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 five changes that we did compared to Bournemouth game, it’s different.”

The Path Forward

To have any realistic chance of avoiding the additional knockout round, they will have to win their remaining two matches. In the first, they welcome the unexpected contenders Pafos, before heading back to the continent to face the Italian title holders, the Neapolitan side.

“Victories in both are required, otherwise, we try to play the playoff and then progress to the following stage,” sniffed the Italian coach, whose following fixture is a match against an Everton team whose current form has propelled them to the surprising position of the top half in the domestic league.

Other Notes

Quote of the Day: “It's interesting, it’s actually funny because his biggest dream was me turning pro in golf. That was his ultimate ambition. So when I was 10, he forced 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 Wolves are in such a poor situation. As any regular reader of this column 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 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 the previous featured letter, but also a mention in another reader's letter. On a night where both Sheffield teams once more dropped points after leading, I am wondering: could the city be proving that the regularity of appearances in your letters section is inversely proportional to the success of anything our teams are achieving on the field?” – a different supporter.