🔗 Share this article

Although The London club didn’t completely torpedo their hopes of finishing in the top eight of the continental tournament group stage, they performed a precise, surgical strike on their own chances of automatically qualifying for the knockout stages. Naturally, the silver lining is that in the brief history of the recently revamped tournament, achieving a place in the top eight may not be as crucial as it seems.

The Central Problem: A Predictable 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 since their defeat in Italy. After apparently rubber-stamping their credentials with an commanding victory of Barcelona, followed by a feisty stalemate with Arsenal, Chelsea have been stuffed by Leeds, played out a dull draw at Bournemouth and have now been beaten by a average team from Italy's top flight.

While critics have been eager to point the finger on a team selection approach that appears to see Enzo Maresca rotate his team like a kebab shop’s elephant leg of doner meat, the Chelsea head coach insists that, knack and naughty step permitting, the nucleus of his first eleven for big matches is mostly fixed.

“I think tonight, first XI, we had on the field the majority of the team that play against Tottenham, they play against Barcelona, they play against Wolverhampton, Arsenal,” he droned. “We had most of the regulars that are the ones consistently selected for matches of this magnitude. 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 host this season’s surprise package Pafos, before heading back to Italy to face the Italian title holders, the Neapolitan side.

“Victories in both are required, if not, we try to play the playoff and then go to the following stage,” sniffed Maresca, whose following fixture is a match against an Merseyside team whose recent consistency has taken to them to the dizzy heights of seventh in the Premier League.

Other Notes

Quote of the Day: “You know, it’s somewhat ironic because his greatest wish was me turning pro in golf. That was his biggest dream. 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 explained how, had his dad got his way, he could have been on the golf course rather than scoring goals in the top flight.

Readers' Letters

“Well, no wonder Wolverhampton Wanderers are in such a poor situation. As any longtime reader of this email 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 showing up 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 name check in another reader's letter. On a night where both clubs from Sheffield once more surrendered points after leading, I am wondering: could Sheffield be proving that the regularity of representation in your letters section is inversely related to the success of anything our teams are achieving on the field?” – a different supporter.