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Although The Blues didn’t completely torpedo their chances of ending up in the highest eight places of the Bigger Cup opening phase, they performed a targeted blow on their own hopes of waltzing straight into the round of 16. Of course, the good news is that in the brief history of the recently revamped competition, achieving a place in the top eight may not be as crucial as it seems.

The Central Issue: A Predictable Inconsistency

Unfortunately for Stamford Bridge regulars, the sole predictable element about Enzo Maresca’s side is a monotonously predictable inconsistency, which has been widely discussed since their loss in Italy. Since apparently rubber-stamping their quality with an impressive beat-down of Barcelona, and then a feisty stalemate with Arsenal, Chelsea have been defeated by a Championship side, played out a dull draw at Bournemouth and have now lost against a average team from Serie A.

While critics have been eager to point the finger on a team selection approach that seems to see Enzo Maresca rotate his team like a kebab shop’s elephant leg of doner meat, the Chelsea head coach insists that, injuries and suspensions aside, the nucleus 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 played against Wolves, Arsenal,” he droned. “We had eight, nine players that are the ones playing every time for these kind of games. So if you look at the five changes that we did compared to Bournemouth game, it’s a different situation.”

The Path Forward

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 welcome the unexpected contenders Pafos, before heading back to Italy to face the Serie A champions, the Neapolitan side.

“We need to win both, if not, we will face the extra round and then progress to the next round,” remarked the Italian coach, whose following fixture is a game against an Merseyside team whose current form has propelled them to the surprising position of the top half in the domestic league.

Side Stories

Notable Comment: “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 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 tearing it up in the Premier League.

Readers' Letters

“So, 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 intended to visit anyway, to the stadium that they were inevitably 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 again surrendered points after leading, I am wondering: could the city be proving that the regularity of representation in your mailbag is inversely proportional to the success of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – a different supporter.