The Manager's Relentless Rotation Puts Chelsea Off Balance.

Although The Blues avoided a total demolition of their hopes of finishing in the top eight of the European competition opening phase, they performed a targeted blow on their own chances of strolling directly into the round of 16. Of course, 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 Core Issue: A Monotonous Inconsistency

Unfortunately for the club's supporters, the only consistent thing about Enzo Maresca’s side is a reliably erratic inconsistency, which has been widely discussed following their defeat in Bergamo. Since apparently rubber-stamping their quality with an commanding victory of Barcelona, and then a bad-tempered draw with a London rival, the team have been stuffed by Leeds, played out a snoozy stalemate at Bournemouth and have now been beaten by a mid-table side from Serie A.

Although critics have been eager to point the finger on a selection policy that appears 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 nucleus of his starting lineup for games against strong opposition is largely set in stone.

“In my view in that game, starting team, we had inside the pitch eight, nine players that play against Tottenham, they play against Barca, they played against Wolverhampton, the Gunners,” he droned. “There were eight, nine players that are the ones consistently selected for these kind of games. So if you see the several alterations that we did from the Bournemouth game, it’s different.”

What Comes Next

For a genuine opportunity of escaping the additional knockout round, they will have to be victorious in their remaining two matches. In the first, they host the unexpected contenders a Cypriot team, before heading back to Italy to face the Italian title holders, Napoli.

“We need to win both, otherwise, we try to play the extra round and then progress to the following stage,” sniffed Maresca, whose following fixture is a game against an Everton team whose current form has taken to them to the dizzy heights of seventh in the domestic league.

Other Notes

Quote of the Day: “You know, it’s somewhat ironic 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 practiced every week from when I was 10 to 13” – Erling Haaland revealed how, if his father had his preference, he could have been on the golf course rather than scoring goals in the Premier League.

Readers' Letters

“Well, no wonder Wolves are in such a sad state. As any longtime reader of this column will know, the only good pre-match protests involve walking from a public house that the supporters planned to be at anyway, to the stadium 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” – a correspondent.

“I note that one correspondent not only got Tuesday’s letter o’ the day, but also a name check in a separate letter. On a night where both clubs from Sheffield once more dropped points after leading, I am led to ponder: could Sheffield be proving that the frequency of appearances in your letters section is inversely related to the value of anything our teams are achieving on the field?” – another fan.