Maresca's Unceasing Lineup Shuffling Leaves Chelsea in a Spin.

Although The London club didn't entirely destroy their chances of finishing in the highest eight places of the continental tournament group stage, they performed a targeted blow on their own chances of waltzing straight into the round of 16. Naturally, the silver lining is that in the brief history of the new and not-necessarily-improved competition, achieving a top-eight finish isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Core Issue: A Predictable Lack of Consistency

Unfortunately for the club's supporters, the only consistent thing about Enzo Maresca’s side is a reliably erratic lack of consistency, which has been much remarked upon since their defeat in Bergamo. After apparently rubber-stamping their quality with an impressive beat-down of Barcelona, followed by a feisty stalemate with Arsenal, the team have been stuffed by Leeds, played out a snoozy stalemate at the south coast club and have now lost against a average team from Italy's top flight.

While critics have been quick to lay the blame on a team selection approach that appears to see Enzo Maresca rotate his team constantly, the manager insists that, injuries and suspensions aside, the nucleus of his starting lineup for big matches is mostly fixed.

“I think tonight, starting team, we had inside the pitch eight, nine players that featured against Tottenham, they played against Barcelona, they play against Wolverhampton, the Gunners,” he droned. “There were eight, nine players that are the ones playing every time for matches of this magnitude. So if you see the five changes that we did compared to previous game, it’s different.”

What Comes Next

To have any realistic chance of avoiding the Bigger Cup playoff round, Chelsea will have to be victorious in their remaining two matches. In the first, they welcome the unexpected contenders a Cypriot team, before heading back to Italy to face the Italian title holders, the Neapolitan side.

“Victories in both are required, if not, we will face the extra round and then progress to the next round,” sniffed Maresca, whose following fixture is a game against an Merseyside team whose recent consistency has propelled them to the surprising position of the top half in the domestic league.

Other Notes

Notable Comment: “You know, it’s actually funny because his biggest dream was me becoming a professional golfer. That was his biggest dream. So when I was 10, he pushed me to start on golf. So I practiced every week from when I was 10 to 13” – Erling Haaland revealed how, if his father had his preference, he could have been on the golf course rather than scoring goals in the Premier League.

Fan Correspondence

“So, no wonder Wolverhampton Wanderers are in such a poor situation. As any longtime reader of this column will know, the only good pre-match protests involve marching from a pub that the supporters intended to visit anyway, to the ground that they were inevitably going to. Just arriving 10 minutes late? That’s how long it takes fans to get to their seats anyway” – a correspondent.

“I see that a reader not only got Tuesday’s letter o’ the day, but also a mention in another reader's letter. On a night where both clubs from Sheffield once more dropped points after leading, I am wondering: could Sheffield be proving that the regularity of appearances in your mailbag is inversely proportional to the success of anything our teams are achieving on the field?” – another fan.