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While The London club didn’t completely torpedo their prospects of ending up in the top eight of the Bigger Cup group stage, they executed a targeted blow on their own chances of strolling directly into the knockout stages. Naturally, the good news is that in the brief history of the recently revamped competition, achieving a place in the top eight isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Core Issue: A Predictable Inconsistency

Sadly for Stamford Bridge regulars, the only consistent thing about Enzo Maresca’s side is a monotonously predictable lack of consistency, which has been much remarked upon since their defeat in Italy. Since seemingly confirming their quality with an commanding victory of a European giant, followed by a bad-tempered draw with a London rival, Chelsea have been defeated by a Championship side, played out a snoozy stalemate at the south coast club and have now lost against 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 change his lineup like a kebab shop’s elephant leg of doner meat, the manager insists that, knack and naughty step permitting, the nucleus of his first eleven for games against strong opposition is mostly fixed.

“I think in that game, starting team, we had inside the pitch the majority of the team that play against Tottenham, they play against Barca, they play against Wolves, the Gunners,” he stated. “We had most of the regulars that are the ones playing every time for these kind of games. So if you see the five changes that we did compared to previous game, it’s a different situation.”

What Comes Next

For a genuine opportunity of escaping the Bigger Cup playoff round, Chelsea will have to be victorious in their remaining two matches. In the first, they host this season’s surprise package Pafos, before heading back to the continent to face the Italian title holders, Napoli.

“We need to win both, otherwise, we try to play the extra round and then progress to the next round,” remarked Maresca, whose next appointment is a game against an Merseyside team whose current form has taken to them to the surprising position of seventh in the Premier League.

Other Notes

Notable Comment: “You know, it’s actually funny because his greatest wish was me becoming a professional golfer. 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” – Erling Haaland revealed how, had his dad got his way, he could have been teeing off rather than scoring goals in the Premier League.

Readers' Letters

“Well, no wonder Wolves are in such a poor situation. As any longtime reader of this column will know, the only effective pre-match protests involve marching from a public house that the supporters planned to be at anyway, to the ground that they were always going to. Just showing up 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 Tuesday’s letter o’ the day, but also a name check in a separate letter. On a night where both Sheffield teams again dropped points after leading, I am wondering: could the city be proving that the frequency of appearances in your mailbag is inversely proportional to the success of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – another fan.