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Although The London club avoided a total demolition of their hopes of finishing in the top eight of the Bigger Cup opening phase, they executed a targeted blow on their own hopes of strolling directly into the knockout stages. Naturally, the silver lining is that in the short one-year history of the new and not-necessarily-improved tournament, achieving a top-eight finish isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Core Concern: A Predictable Inconsistency

Sadly for the club's supporters, the sole predictable element about the Chelsea team is a monotonously predictable lack of consistency, which has been much remarked upon following their loss in Italy. After apparently rubber-stamping their credentials with an impressive beat-down of a European giant, and then a bad-tempered draw with Arsenal, the team have been stuffed by a Championship side, played out a dull draw at the south coast club and have now lost against a mid-table side from Italy's top flight.

Although critics have been quick to lay the blame on a team selection approach that seems to see the coach rotate his team like a kebab shop’s elephant leg of doner meat, the Chelsea head coach insists that, knack and naughty step permitting, the core of his starting lineup for games against strong opposition is largely set in stone.

“I think in that game, starting team, we had on the field the majority of the team that play against Tottenham, they play against Barcelona, they played against Wolverhampton, the Gunners,” he droned. “There were most of the regulars that are the ones consistently selected for these kind of games. So if you look at the five changes that we did compared to previous game, it’s different.”

What Comes Next

To have any realistic chance of escaping the additional knockout round, Chelsea will have to win their final two group games. First up, they host this season’s surprise package a Cypriot team, before heading back to the continent to face the Serie A champions, Napoli.

“Victories in both are required, if not, we will face the extra round and then go to the next round,” sniffed Maresca, whose next appointment is a game against an Everton team whose recent consistency has propelled them to the surprising position of the top half in the domestic league.

Side Stories

Notable Comment: “It's interesting, it’s actually funny because his greatest wish was me becoming a professional golfer. That was his biggest dream. So when I was 10, he forced me to take up golf. So I played golf 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 tearing it up in the top flight.

Fan Correspondence

“So, 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 intended to visit 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 see that a reader not only got the previous featured letter, but also a name check in a separate letter. On a night where both clubs from Sheffield again dropped points after leading, I am wondering: could Sheffield be proving that the regularity of representation in your letters section is inversely proportional to the value of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – a different supporter.