🔗 Share this article

Although The Blues didn't entirely destroy their chances of ending up in the top eight of the Bigger Cup opening phase, they performed a targeted blow on their own hopes of strolling directly into the round of 16. Naturally, the silver lining is that in the short one-year history of the recently revamped competition, achieving a top-eight finish may not be as crucial as it seems.

The Core Issue: A Monotonous Inconsistency

Sadly for Stamford Bridge regulars, the sole predictable element about the Chelsea team is a reliably erratic lack of consistency, which has been much remarked upon following their defeat in Bergamo. After seemingly confirming 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 Leeds, played out a dull draw at Bournemouth and have now been beaten by a average team from Italy's top flight.

While critics have been quick to lay the blame on a team selection approach that seems to see Enzo Maresca rotate his team like a kebab shop’s elephant leg of doner meat, the Chelsea head coach maintains that, injuries and suspensions aside, the nucleus of his starting lineup for big matches is largely set in stone.

“I think tonight, first XI, we had inside the pitch the majority of the team that featured against Spurs, they played against Barcelona, they play against Wolves, Arsenal,” he droned. “We had eight, nine players that are the ones playing every time for these kind of games. So if you see the five changes that we did from the previous game, it’s different.”

The Path Forward

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

“We need to win both, otherwise, we will face the playoff and then go to the following stage,” remarked the Italian coach, whose following fixture is a match against an Everton team whose recent consistency has taken to them to the dizzy heights 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 pushed me to start on golf. So I played golf every week from when I was 10 to 13” – a star striker explained how, if his father had his preference, he could have been teeing off rather than scoring goals in the top flight.

Fan Correspondence

“Well, no wonder Wolverhampton Wanderers 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 inevitably 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 the previous featured letter, but also a mention in another reader's letter. On a night where both Sheffield teams once more dropped points after leading, I am led to ponder: could the city be proving that the regularity of representation in your mailbag is inversely related to the success of anything our teams are achieving on the field?” – another fan.