🔗 Share this article

Although The London club avoided a total demolition of their hopes of ending up in the highest eight places of the continental tournament group stage, they executed a targeted blow on their own chances of waltzing straight into the round of 16. Naturally, the good news is that in the brief history of the new and not-necessarily-improved competition, achieving a top-eight finish isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Central Issue: A Monotonous Inconsistency

Sadly for Stamford Bridge regulars, the only consistent thing about Enzo Maresca’s side is a monotonously predictable inconsistency, which has been much remarked upon following their loss in Bergamo. Since apparently rubber-stamping their credentials with an commanding victory of a European giant, and then a feisty stalemate with Arsenal, the team have been defeated by Leeds, played out a dull draw at the south coast club and have now been beaten by a mid-table side from Italy's top flight.

While pundits have been quick to lay the blame on a team selection approach that appears to see Enzo Maresca change his lineup like a kebab shop’s elephant leg of doner meat, the manager maintains that, injuries and suspensions aside, the core of his first eleven for big matches is mostly fixed.

“I think tonight, first XI, we had on the field eight, nine players that featured against Spurs, they played against Barca, they play against Wolves, the Gunners,” he droned. “We had most of the regulars that are the ones playing every time for matches of this magnitude. So if you see the five changes that we did compared to previous game, it’s different.”

What Comes Next

For a genuine opportunity of escaping the additional knockout round, Chelsea will have to win their remaining two matches. In the first, they host this season’s surprise package a Cypriot team, before heading back to Italy to face the Serie A champions, Napoli.

“We need to win both, otherwise, we try to play the extra round and then go to the following stage,” remarked Maresca, whose following fixture is a match against an Everton team whose recent consistency has taken to them to the surprising position of the top half in the Premier League.

Side Stories

Quote of the Day: “You know, it’s actually funny 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 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 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 column will know, the only effective pre-match protests involve marching from a public house that the supporters intended to visit 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 a reader not only got the previous letter o’ the day, but also a mention in another reader's letter. On a night where both clubs from Sheffield again surrendered points after leading, I am led to ponder: could Sheffield be proving that the frequency of appearances in your letters section is inversely proportional to the value of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – a different supporter.