Chelsea can't afford in-out approach to Europe

'You put your left leg in, you take your left leg out: in, out, in, out, shake it all about...' You'd be forgiven for thinking it sounds a bit like the way Chelsea have been defending over the last few months, but it is also a pretty fair description of the club's European pedigree of late.

Two seasons back, when the big meltdown took place on Jose Mourinho's watch, there was a great deal of disquiet over what a year out of the Champions League might mean for the Blues as an entity. The repercussions were felt throughout the club: as personnel changed, finances were shaken, and fans locked their passports away for a year.

But life went on, and Chelsea were back after a season out. No real harm done.

Just as two years ago, there are those still clinging on to the mathematical possibility of Champions League qualification long after the slimmest reasonable likelihood of it has slipped away. If you thought it even a pipe dream prior to Sunday's draw with West Ham, then you should probably set your hopes on something more likely now: a white Christmas in the Sahara, perhaps.

Again, a season out is unlikely to be disastrous for Blues. But with every incidence of their absence, the damage to the long-term project (and you can stop tittering at the back at mention of those words) becomes greater.

The wisdom, last time, was that the mere fact of being at the Champions League table brought a club upwards of £30m. That figure today is more like £50m: something which will hit Chelsea's finances hard, at a time when austerity is already the name of the game in transfer dealings.

But it is the intangibles which will be far more costly to the standing of the club: both within the Premier League, and in the wider setting of Europe. Players, managers, customers (they used to be known as fans) all become harder to find when a side is not in the mix for the continent's shiniest piece of silverware.

Chelsea have shown before that they can attract top names at such times: but there has to be a persuasive case that this status is merely a blip, and that the prevailing order will be restored sooner rather than later. The problem only hits home should those blips obscure the wider picture, to the point where qualification itself becomes the blip – not the absence of it.

The additional problem raised by Chelsea's present place in the food chain is what might replace Champions League action.

“You get some interesting trips out of it,” is the most common response from the intrepid travelling supporter, in relation to the Europa League. But clubs hate it, attendances show fans aren't so keen on it, and TV audiences largely ignore it. Plus, a season of Thursday night games (and there seem to be so very many of them in this competition) will have a knock-on effect on the domestic timetable: you can forget Sunday lunches with the family for the next year, at least.

Thus, on walking out of Stamford Bridge post-West Ham, conspiracy was a common theme among the support: talk that Chelsea might be so Europa-averse, as to plummet at will - just to avoid the thing.

Achieving such an outcome from this position would be considerably more inept than the outcome in 2016 (it would also require Chelsea not to win the FA Cup – though mere qualification for the final does not bring Europa qualification). But you can be sure it would come as a failure, rather than by any calculated miss.

Chelsea's long-term plan (I told you to stop sniggering) involves building the name of the club: with on-pitch success being a crucial factor in both finances and the long-touted new bricks and mortar.

Failings, such as this season's campaign, dent that aim – making it trickier to attract the personnel that perpetuate the club's position in the highest echelons of the game.

Another dent can be carried by the hull, but too many more and the ship is in danger of sinking.

And avoiding that, as the song goes, is what it's all about.