Maresca's Relentless Rotation Has Chelsea Spinning.

While The Blues didn't entirely destroy their chances 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 knockout stages. Naturally, the good news is that in the short one-year history of the recently revamped tournament, securing a place in the top eight isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Central Problem: A Monotonous Lack of Consistency

Unfortunately for Stamford Bridge regulars, the sole predictable element about the Chelsea team is a reliably erratic inconsistency, which has been widely discussed following their loss in Italy. After seemingly confirming their quality with an impressive beat-down of Barcelona, followed by a feisty stalemate with Arsenal, Chelsea have been defeated by Leeds, played out a snoozy stalemate at the south coast club and have now been beaten by a average team from Italy's top flight.

Although pundits have been eager to point the finger on a team selection approach that seems to see the coach rotate his team incessantly, the manager maintains that, injuries and suspensions aside, the nucleus of his starting lineup for big matches is mostly fixed.

“In my view tonight, first XI, we had on the field eight, nine players that play against Spurs, they played against Barcelona, they played against Wolverhampton, the Gunners,” he droned. “We had eight, nine players that are the ones playing every time for these kind of games. So if you see the several alterations that we did compared to previous game, it’s a different situation.”

The Path Forward

For a genuine opportunity of escaping the Bigger Cup playoff round, they will have to win their final two group games. First up, they welcome this season’s surprise package Pafos, then travel 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 next round,” sniffed Maresca, whose following fixture is a game against an Merseyside team whose recent consistency has propelled them to the surprising position of seventh in the Premier League.

Other Notes

Quote of the Day: “It's interesting, it’s actually funny because his greatest wish was me turning pro in golf. That was his biggest dream. So when I was 10, he pushed 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 regular reader of this column 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 showing up 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 name check in a separate letter. On a night where both clubs from Sheffield again dropped points after leading, I am wondering: could the city be proving that the regularity of appearances in your letters section is inversely related to the value of anything our teams are achieving on the field?” – another fan.