The Manager's Relentless Lineup Shuffling Leaves Chelsea Off Balance.

While Chelsea didn't entirely destroy their hopes of finishing in the highest eight places of the Bigger Cup opening phase, they performed a precise, surgical strike on their own chances of automatically qualifying for the round of 16. Of course, the good news is that in the short one-year history of the recently revamped tournament, securing a top-eight finish isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Core Concern: A Predictable Lack of Consistency

Unfortunately for Stamford Bridge regulars, the only consistent thing about the Chelsea team is a monotonously predictable lack of consistency, which has been widely discussed since their defeat in Italy. Since apparently rubber-stamping their quality with an impressive beat-down of a European giant, and then a bad-tempered draw with Arsenal, Chelsea have been defeated by Leeds, played out a snoozy stalemate at Bournemouth and have now been beaten by a average team from Serie A.

Although critics have been eager to point the finger on a selection policy that appears to see Enzo Maresca rotate his team like a kebab shop’s elephant leg of doner meat, the manager insists that, knack and naughty step permitting, the nucleus of his first eleven for games against strong opposition is largely set in stone.

“In my view in that game, starting team, we had on the field the majority of the team that featured against Spurs, they played against Barcelona, they played against Wolves, 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 five changes that we did compared to Bournemouth game, it’s a different situation.”

What Comes Next

To have any realistic chance of escaping the Bigger Cup playoff round, they will have to be victorious in their final two group games. First up, they welcome this season’s surprise package Pafos, before heading back to Italy to face the Italian title holders, Napoli.

“Victories in both are required, otherwise, we will face the extra round and then progress to the next round,” sniffed Maresca, whose next appointment is a game against an Merseyside team whose recent consistency has propelled them to the dizzy heights of the top half in the Premier League.

Other Notes

Notable Comment: “It's interesting, it’s actually funny because his greatest wish was me turning pro in golf. That was his ultimate ambition. 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 revealed how, had his dad got his way, he could have been on the golf course rather than tearing it up in the Premier League.

Fan Correspondence

“So, no wonder Wolves are in such a sad state. As any regular reader of this column 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 Tuesday’s letter o’ the day, 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 led to ponder: could the city be proving that the frequency of representation in your mailbag is inversely related to the success of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – a different supporter.