The Manager's Relentless Team Changes Has Chelsea Reeling.

Although Chelsea didn't entirely destroy their prospects of ending up in the top eight of the continental tournament group stage, they performed a targeted blow on their own hopes of automatically qualifying for the round of 16. Of course, the silver lining is that in the short one-year history of the new and not-necessarily-improved competition, securing a place in the top eight may not be as crucial as it seems.

The Core Issue: A Monotonous Lack of Consistency

Unfortunately for the club's supporters, the sole predictable element about Enzo Maresca’s side is a reliably erratic inconsistency, which has been much remarked upon since their defeat in Bergamo. Since seemingly confirming their quality with an impressive beat-down of Barcelona, and then a bad-tempered draw with Arsenal, Chelsea have been defeated by a Championship side, played out a snoozy stalemate at Bournemouth and have now been beaten by a average team from Italy's top flight.

While pundits have been quick to lay the blame on a team selection approach that appears to see Enzo Maresca change his lineup 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 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 featured against Spurs, they played against Barcelona, they play against Wolves, Arsenal,” he stated. “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.”

The Path Forward

To have any realistic chance of avoiding the Bigger Cup playoff round, Chelsea will have to win their remaining two matches. First up, they host this season’s surprise package Pafos, then travel back to Italy to face the Serie A champions, the Neapolitan side.

“Victories in both are required, otherwise, we will face the playoff and then progress to the following stage,” remarked Maresca, whose following fixture is a match against an Everton team whose recent consistency has propelled them to the dizzy heights of seventh in the domestic league.

Side Stories

Quote of the Day: “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 forced me to start on golf. So I played golf every week from when I was 10 to 13” – Erling Haaland explained how, if his father had his preference, he could have been teeing off rather than tearing it up in the Premier League.

Readers' Letters

“Well, no wonder Wolverhampton Wanderers are in such a sad state. As any longtime 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 note that a reader not only got Tuesday’s featured letter, but also a mention in another reader's letter. On a night where both Sheffield teams 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 value of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – a different supporter.