🔗 Share this article

While The London club didn't entirely destroy their prospects of finishing in the highest eight places of the European competition group stage, they executed a precise, surgical strike on their own hopes of automatically qualifying for the knockout stages. Of course, the silver lining is that in the short one-year history of the new and not-necessarily-improved tournament, achieving a top-eight finish may not be as crucial as it seems.

The Core Concern: A Predictable Inconsistency

Unfortunately for Stamford Bridge regulars, the sole predictable element about the Chelsea team is a reliably erratic inconsistency, which has been much remarked upon since their defeat in Bergamo. Since apparently rubber-stamping their credentials with an commanding victory of Barcelona, followed by a feisty stalemate with Arsenal, the team have been defeated by Leeds, played out a dull draw 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 the coach rotate his team like a kebab shop’s elephant leg of doner meat, the Chelsea head coach insists that, injuries and suspensions aside, the nucleus of his first eleven for games against strong opposition is mostly fixed.

“In my view tonight, first XI, we had on the field the majority of the team that play against Tottenham, they play against Barcelona, they play against Wolves, Arsenal,” he stated. “We had most of the regulars that are the ones consistently selected for these kind of games. So if you look at the several alterations that we did from the Bournemouth game, it’s a different situation.”

What Comes Next

For a genuine opportunity of avoiding the Bigger Cup playoff round, they will have to be victorious in their remaining two matches. In the first, they welcome the unexpected contenders Pafos, then travel back to Italy to face the Italian title holders, Napoli.

“Victories in both are required, if not, we will face the extra round and then go to the following stage,” sniffed the Italian coach, whose next appointment is a match against an Everton team whose recent consistency has propelled them to the surprising position of the top half in the Premier League.

Other Notes

Notable Comment: “It's interesting, it’s somewhat ironic because his biggest dream was me turning pro in golf. 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 revealed how, had his dad got his way, he could have been on the golf course rather than tearing it up in the top flight.

Readers' Letters

“So, no wonder Wolves are in such a poor situation. As any regular reader of this email will know, the only good pre-match protests involve marching 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” – a correspondent.

“I see that one correspondent not only got the previous letter o’ the day, but also a name check in a separate letter. On a night where both Sheffield teams once more dropped points after leading, I am led to ponder: could Sheffield be proving that the regularity of representation in your letters section is inversely proportional to the success of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – another fan.