Chelsea opened the scoring at the Stadio San Paolo but a trio of defensive errors cost the Blues dearly as Napoli came back to win 3-1. The story after the loss is going to be that Chelsea were blown out, which is probably unfair - the Blues did enough to earn something much closer to a draw and Napoli got some lucky breaks. So things go. It's also not an insurmountable deficit. The team is down by two and has an away goal, and Chelsea should be very capable of beating the Partenopei at Stamford Bridge in three weeks.

Some quick thoughts on what happened today...

• Andre Villas-Boas starting Raul Meireles in this match is a fireable offence for me. Napoli play incredibly well on the transition, whereas Meireles can't defend and gives the ball away in stupid areas. A lot of the pressure (and the first goal) could have been avoided had Meireles been stuck on the bench where he belongs. Fortunately, Raul will be suspended for the next match.
• Speaking of the midfield, Ramires played incredibly poorly. I don't want to pick on him because he's been superb this season, but that was some pants defending (and attacking play).
• It took way too long to get Michael Essien and Frank Lampard on. We looked far better with an actual midfield rather than having clown car and an off-colour Ramires in the centre. Another mark against Villas-Boas, probably, but he was put in a bind by the early injury to Jose Bosingwa.
• The goals were not the result of being unprepared to deal with Napoli's attacks. We had an individual error from Meireles for Lavezzi's first, Branislav Ivanovic reacting slowly to Edinson Cavani's run for the second, and a moment of madness in what was otherwise another strong game by David Luiz for Lavezzi's third. That said, Napoli did generate chances when the fullbacks were both pushed too high up the pitch, which was an obvious weakness for Chelsea.
• Ashley Cole wasn't 'dropped'. He was recovering from an injury. This isn't that hard to grasp. He did play reasonably well, however.
• We're still having issues with patience. There were stretches where Chelsea dominated the game but simply pushed Napoli too hard. The hosts weren't defending well and were opening themselves up by making rash challenges, but the passes Chelsea were playing didn't really take advantage of the spaces and actually pushed Napoli back into a more compact block. They were also far too risky - you absolutely cannot play blind flicks etc. when you're against a team as capable on the counterattack as this one.
• I think we're in for a legitimate shout of winning this tie over two legs. Napoli didn't show they were much better than us and for me the margin of victory didn't really reflect the performance. 2-1 would have been fair, but there's no reason Chelsea can't come back to win at home. Let's hope they can.
• Seriously what the heck Raul Meireles.
  

Napoli starting lineup (3-4-2-1): Morgan de Sanctis; Salvatore Aronica, Paolo Cannavaro, Hugo Campagnaro; Juan Zuniga, Walter Gargano, Gokhan Inler, Christian Maggio; Ezequiel Lavezzi, Marek Hamsik; Edinson Cavani.

Substitutes from: Antonio Rosati, Gianluca Grava, Andrea Dossena, Federico Fernandez, Blerim Dzemaili, Miguel Britos, Goran Pandev.

Chelsea starting lineup (4-2-3-1): Petr Cech; Jose Bosingwa, David Luiz, Gary Cahill, Branislav Ivanovic; Ramires, Raul Meireles; Florent Malouda, Juan Mata, Daniel Sturridge; Didier Drogba.

Substitutes from: Ross Turnbull, Ashley Cole, Fernando Torres, Salomon Kalou, Frank Lampard, John Obi Mikel, Michael Essien.

Big game. Come on Chelsea! (That lineup might be a 4-3-3 in which case... death.)

Chelsea take on Napoli at the Stadio San Paolo in the Champions League on Tuesday, battling to become the only English team to advance to the quarterfinals this season. It won't be easy. The Partenopei have already dispatched Manchester City (who, like it or not, are a far stronger team than we are this season), and they're the the kind of side that can beat anyone on their day. On Chelsea's day... well, we haven't seen Chelsea have any sort of day in a while, so let's hope the football gods smile upon us in Italy.

Schedule and team news coming up after the jump...

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Both on and off the pitch, things aren't going great for Chelsea at this moment. Recent performances have been dire and the talks of dressing-room/training-ground tension have been making headlines. Fans' belief in the players, the manager and the team is at all time low. This is probably not the best time to face one of the most lethal teams in Europe, but here we are, on the verge of a Champions League meeting with Napoli.

Everything can change of course. Getting a good result in Europe (no matter how slim that chance is) can spark a major turnaround for Chelsea at this stage. And studying how Napoli managed to beat another English team -- Manchester City -- at home in a Champions League game might help Chelsea achieve that goal. So, here are scout notes from Napoli's 2-1 win over City in the group stage this season's Champions League.

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Chelsea rather notoriously neglected to include both Ryan Bertrand and Romelu Lukaku on their Champions League squad to start the season, and that's led to some confusion as to who exactly will be available to Andre Villas-Boas against Napoli. With Ashley Cole possibly missing out thanks to a calf injury, it'd be nice if the manager had a choice beyond Jose Bosingwa at left back (if only to give us something to complain about).

Turns out he probably does. Like the Premier League's 25-man squad, we got to do things over again in January, and the departures of Alex and Nicolas Anelka have given Chelsea some wiggle room. From the UEFA website, it looks as though both Ryan Bertrand and Gary Cahill have been added to the squad, with Lukaku still not making it in. There's no official squad list anywhere - the one on UEFA.com still lists Alex, Anelka, Josh McEachran and Kaby, but it certainly didn't have Bertrand on the roster beforehand (and still omits Lukaku) so I think we can be fairly confident that he's in. Yay!

Walter Mazzarri was suspended for two games by UEFA for a shove of Nilmar in the final game of the Champions League group stages. The Napoli manager appealed the decision, but news today suggests that his appeal was rejected. According to Mattia Grassani (the lawyer for Napoli):

The two-game ban was confirmed, then there is a third suspended sentence, if there is no appeal to a third party, then he will have to sit out the ban in both the home and away legs against Chelsea.

It's still entirely possible that Napoli appeal to a third party, but there is absolutely no reason to believe that it has any chance of success. Then again, Napoli doesn't look to be in a good position to return to the Champions League next season so it may make some sense to appeal anyway. I'm sure we'll hear the club's decision in the next several days, and we'll be sure to keep you updated.

Napoli are already faced with a tough ask in having to deal with Chelsea FC in the Champions League Round of 16, but now they'll be faced with a key absentee - manager Walter Mazzarri, who's widely credited with turning the club into the counterattacking powerhouse we all know and love. UEFA have banned the eccentric manager for two matches, which rules him out of both matches against the Blues.

Why the suspension? It turns out that shoving an opposition player off the ball, as Mazzarri did to Nilmar with Napoli drawing 0-0 against Villarreal in Napoli's final group stage match, is frowned upon. The 50-year-old later admitted that he had deliberately gotten himself sent off to fire up his team, and it worked, with the Partenopei eventually winning 2-0 to advance to the knockout stages, but UEFA didn't look too kindly on it.

Napoli are going to appeal, but one suspects that it's not going to work, so yeah, they won't have a manager for their games against us. I don't think anyone really knows how much having a manager on the touchline actually matters - it's not as though the team's suddenly going to forget how to play a 3-4-2-1 with Mazzarri absent - but hey, this can't hurt Chelsea's bid to get to the quarterfinals.

So, as you all hopefully know by now, Chelsea drew Serie A Napoli for the first knockout round of the UEFA Champions League. This news isn't great - any team that can knock out Manchester City as well as hang with Bayern Munich, Bastian Schweinsteiger edition is one to be respected* - but it's not the end of the world either. Chelsea are still favourites to progress, and we have every chance of making it to the quarterfinals at the end of our two matches against Edinson Cavani and company.

*At one point, Napoli had scored as many goals against Bayern as the entire Bundesliga had all season. They then injured Bayern's best player. Make no mistake, the Partenopei can **** you right up.

But you don't come here to read what I have to say. You came to hear from Batman himself. Here's Petr Cech on Napoli:

It's a very dangerous game because at the moment they are flying high. But the game is in February and in football things can change quickly. The away game in particular will be very tough, their stadium is known for having one of the best atmospheres in Europe and it will be bouncing, so I'm looking forward to it.

I played against Marek Hamsik for Czech Republic against Slovakia, he's a very good player but as a team they are very strong and I feel that is their biggest strength. (emphasis mine)

-Source: ChelseaFC.com.

Right from the horse's mouth: Napoli's biggest strength is that they are a very strong team. I bet I know Napoli's biggest weakness, too: Sometimes they are weak. Anyway, now that we've thoroughly sussed our opponents, we should get Cech to come up with our game plan. I predict it will go something like, "We should try to score more goals than Napoli, but failing that we would like to go through on away goals, in extra time, or on penalties".

With this sort of information on our side, how can we possibly go wrong?