The Manager's Constant Team Changes Leaves Chelsea Spinning.

While The London club avoided a total demolition of their prospects of finishing in the highest eight places of the European competition group stage, they performed a targeted blow on their own chances of strolling directly into the knockout stages. Naturally, the silver lining is that in the short one-year history of the new and not-necessarily-improved tournament, securing a top-eight finish isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Central Issue: A Monotonous Inconsistency

Sadly 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 following their loss in Bergamo. After apparently rubber-stamping their quality with an impressive beat-down of a European giant, and then a bad-tempered draw with Arsenal, the team have been defeated by a Championship side, played out a dull draw at the south coast club and have now been beaten by a mid-table side from Serie A.

Although critics have been quick to lay the blame on a selection policy that seems to see the coach rotate his team incessantly, the Chelsea head coach maintains that, knack and naughty step permitting, the nucleus of his first eleven for games against strong opposition is mostly fixed.

“I think tonight, first XI, we had on the field eight, nine players that play against Spurs, they played against Barca, they play against Wolverhampton, the Gunners,” he stated. “We had eight, nine players that are the ones playing every time for matches of this magnitude. So if you see the several alterations that we did compared to Bournemouth game, it’s different.”

What Comes Next

For a genuine opportunity of avoiding the Bigger Cup playoff round, Chelsea will have to win their remaining two matches. First up, they welcome this season’s surprise package Pafos, then travel back to the continent to face the Serie A champions, Napoli.

“We need to win both, otherwise, we try to play the extra round and then progress to the next round,” remarked the Italian coach, whose next appointment is a match against an Everton team whose recent consistency has taken to them to the surprising position of seventh 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 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” – Erling Haaland revealed how, if his father had his preference, he could have been teeing off rather than tearing it up in the Premier League.

Fan Correspondence

“Well, no wonder Wolverhampton Wanderers are in such a sad state. As any regular reader of this column will know, the only good pre-match protests involve walking from a public house that the supporters intended to visit anyway, to the stadium 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 featured letter, but also a mention in another reader's letter. On a night where both clubs from Sheffield once more surrendered points after leading, I am wondering: could Sheffield be proving that the regularity of appearances in your letters section is inversely proportional to the success of anything our teams are achieving on the field?” – a different supporter.