Maresca's Relentless Lineup Shuffling Leaves Chelsea Off Balance.

While The Blues didn’t completely torpedo their hopes of finishing in the top eight of the European competition group stage, they executed a precise, surgical strike on their own chances of automatically qualifying for the knockout stages. Naturally, the good news is that in the brief history of the new and not-necessarily-improved tournament, securing a top-eight finish may not be as crucial as it seems.

The Central Problem: A Predictable Inconsistency

Unfortunately for the club's supporters, the only consistent thing about Enzo Maresca’s side is a monotonously predictable inconsistency, which has been much remarked upon following their defeat in Bergamo. Since seemingly confirming their quality with an impressive beat-down of a European giant, followed by a feisty stalemate with a London rival, the team have been defeated 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 appears to see the coach change his lineup incessantly, the manager insists that, knack and naughty step permitting, the nucleus of his starting lineup for games against strong opposition is mostly fixed.

“I think in that game, starting team, we had on the field the majority of the team that play against Tottenham, they played against Barcelona, they play against Wolverhampton, the Gunners,” he stated. “There were eight, nine players 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.”

What Comes Next

For a genuine opportunity of escaping the additional knockout round, Chelsea will have to be victorious in their final two group games. First up, they welcome the unexpected contenders Pafos, then travel back to Italy to face the Serie A champions, the Neapolitan side.

“Victories in both are required, otherwise, we try to play the playoff and then progress to the next round,” sniffed the Italian coach, whose next appointment is a match against an Merseyside team whose recent consistency has taken to 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 greatest wish 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 teeing off rather than scoring goals in the top flight.

Fan Correspondence

“So, no wonder Wolverhampton Wanderers are in such a sad state. As any longtime reader of this column will know, the only effective pre-match protests involve marching from a pub that the supporters planned to be at anyway, to the ground that they were always 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 a reader not only got the previous letter o’ the day, but also a mention in a separate letter. On a night where both Sheffield teams again dropped points after leading, I am led to ponder: could Sheffield be proving that the regularity of representation in your mailbag is inversely proportional to the success of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – a different supporter.