🔗 Share this article

While Chelsea didn't entirely destroy their hopes of ending up in the top eight of the continental tournament opening phase, they performed a targeted blow on their own hopes of waltzing straight into the knockout stages. Of course, the silver lining is that in the short one-year history of the new and not-necessarily-improved tournament, achieving a place in the top eight may not be as crucial as it seems.

The Core Concern: A Monotonous Inconsistency

Unfortunately for Stamford Bridge regulars, the sole predictable element about the Chelsea team is a monotonously predictable inconsistency, which has been widely discussed following their defeat in Italy. After apparently rubber-stamping their quality with an commanding victory of Barcelona, and then a feisty stalemate with Arsenal, the team have been stuffed by Leeds, played out a snoozy stalemate at Bournemouth and have now lost against a average team from Serie A.

Although critics have been quick to lay the blame on a selection policy that seems to see Enzo Maresca rotate his team like a kebab shop’s elephant leg of doner meat, the manager maintains that, knack and naughty step permitting, the core of his starting lineup for big matches is largely set in stone.

“In my view in that game, first XI, we had inside the pitch eight, nine players that play against Spurs, they play against Barcelona, they played against Wolves, the Gunners,” he stated. “We had most of the regulars that are the ones consistently selected for matches of this magnitude. So if you look at the several alterations that we did from the Bournemouth game, it’s a different situation.”

The Path Forward

To have any realistic chance of avoiding the additional knockout round, Chelsea will have to be victorious in their remaining two matches. In the first, they host the unexpected contenders a Cypriot team, then travel back to Italy to face the Serie A champions, Napoli.

“Victories in both are required, if not, we try to play the playoff and then go to the next round,” remarked Maresca, whose next appointment is a game against an Everton team whose recent consistency has propelled them to the surprising position of the top half in the domestic league.

Other Notes

Notable Comment: “It's interesting, it’s actually funny because his biggest dream was me turning pro in golf. 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 teeing off rather than scoring goals in the top flight.

Readers' Letters

“So, no wonder Wolves are in such a sad state. As any regular reader of this email will know, the only effective pre-match protests involve walking from a pub that the supporters intended to visit anyway, to the stadium that they were inevitably going to. Just arriving 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 featured letter, 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 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?” – a different supporter.