🔗 Share this article

While The London club avoided a total demolition of their chances of ending up in the top eight of the European competition group stage, they performed a precise, surgical strike on their own hopes of strolling directly into the round of 16. Naturally, the silver lining is that in the short one-year history of the new and not-necessarily-improved competition, achieving a place in the top eight may not be as crucial as it seems.

The Core Issue: A Predictable Inconsistency

Sadly for the club's supporters, the sole predictable element about Enzo Maresca’s side is a reliably erratic inconsistency, which has been widely discussed since their defeat in Italy. After apparently rubber-stamping their credentials with an impressive beat-down of Barcelona, followed by a bad-tempered draw with Arsenal, the team have been stuffed by Leeds, played out a snoozy stalemate at Bournemouth and have now lost against a mid-table side from Italy's top flight.

While critics have been eager to point the finger on a selection policy that seems to see the coach rotate his team like a kebab shop’s elephant leg of doner meat, the manager insists that, injuries and suspensions aside, the core of his starting lineup for big matches is mostly fixed.

“In my view in that game, starting team, we had inside the pitch eight, nine players that play against Spurs, they played against Barcelona, they play against Wolverhampton, the Gunners,” he stated. “There were eight, nine players that are the ones playing every time for matches of this magnitude. So if you look at the five changes that we did from the Bournemouth game, it’s a different situation.”

What Comes Next

For a genuine opportunity of avoiding the additional knockout round, Chelsea will have to win their final two group games. In the first, they welcome the unexpected contenders a Cypriot team, then travel back to Italy to face the Serie A champions, the Neapolitan side.

“We need to win both, if not, we try to play the extra round and then go to the next round,” remarked the Italian coach, whose following fixture is a game against an Everton team whose recent consistency has propelled them to the surprising position of the top half in the Premier League.

Side Stories

Notable Comment: “It's interesting, it’s actually funny because his biggest dream was me turning pro in golf. That was his ultimate ambition. So when I was 10, he forced me to take up 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 teeing off rather than tearing it up in the top flight.

Readers' Letters

“Well, 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 public house that the supporters intended to visit anyway, to the ground that they were always going to. Just arriving 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 Tuesday’s letter o’ the day, but also a mention in a separate letter. On a night where both clubs from Sheffield again dropped points after leading, I am wondering: could Sheffield be proving that the regularity of representation in your mailbag is inversely related to the success of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – another fan.