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Although The Blues didn't entirely destroy their prospects of ending up in the highest eight places of the continental tournament group stage, they performed a targeted blow on their own chances of strolling directly into the knockout stages. Naturally, the silver lining is that in the brief history of the new and not-necessarily-improved tournament, achieving a place in the top eight isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Core Concern: A Predictable Lack of Consistency

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 widely discussed since their defeat in Italy. After seemingly confirming their quality with an impressive beat-down of a European giant, followed by a feisty stalemate with Arsenal, the team have been stuffed by Leeds, played out a snoozy stalemate at Bournemouth and have now been beaten by a average team from Italy's top flight.

While pundits have been eager to point the finger on a selection policy that seems 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 nucleus of his starting lineup for games against strong opposition is largely set in stone.

“In my view tonight, starting team, we had inside the pitch the majority of the team that play against Spurs, they played against Barcelona, they play against Wolves, Arsenal,” he droned. “There were eight, nine players that are the ones playing every time for these kind of games. So if you see the several alterations that we did from the previous game, it’s a different situation.”

The Path Forward

For a genuine opportunity of avoiding the Bigger Cup playoff round, they will have to be victorious in their remaining two matches. In the first, they welcome the unexpected contenders Pafos, then travel back to Italy to face the Serie A champions, the Neapolitan side.

“We need to win both, if not, we try to play the extra round and then progress to the following stage,” sniffed the Italian coach, whose next appointment is a match against an Merseyside team whose current form has taken to them to the surprising position of seventh in the Premier League.

Side Stories

Quote of the Day: “You know, it’s somewhat ironic 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 played golf every week from when I was 10 to 13” – Erling Haaland revealed how, if his father had his preference, he could have been teeing off rather than scoring goals in the Premier League.

Readers' Letters

“So, no wonder Wolverhampton Wanderers are in such a sad state. As any longtime 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” – one reader.

“I note that a reader not only got the previous letter o’ the day, but also a name check in another reader's letter. On a night where both Sheffield teams once more dropped points after leading, I am led to ponder: could the city be proving that the regularity of representation in your letters section is inversely related to the value of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – another fan.