🔗 Share this article

While Chelsea avoided a total demolition of their prospects of ending up in the highest eight places of the Bigger Cup group stage, they performed a precise, surgical strike on their own hopes of automatically qualifying for the knockout stages. Naturally, the silver lining is that in the brief history of the recently revamped competition, securing a top-eight finish may not be as crucial as it seems.

The Core Concern: A Predictable Lack of Consistency

Unfortunately for the club's supporters, the sole predictable element about the Chelsea team is a monotonously predictable lack of consistency, which has been widely discussed following their loss in Italy. After apparently rubber-stamping their quality with an commanding victory of Barcelona, and then a feisty stalemate with Arsenal, the team have been stuffed by a Championship side, played out a dull draw at Bournemouth and have now lost against a average team from Serie A.

Although pundits have been eager to point the finger on a selection policy that appears to see the coach change his lineup incessantly, the Chelsea head coach insists that, injuries and suspensions aside, the nucleus of his first eleven for big matches is largely set in stone.

“I think tonight, first XI, we had inside the pitch the majority of the team that play against Tottenham, they played against Barca, they play against Wolverhampton, the Gunners,” he stated. “There were most of the regulars that are the ones playing every time for these kind of games. So if you look at the five changes that we did compared to previous 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. In the first, they host the unexpected contenders a Cypriot team, before heading back to Italy to face the Serie A champions, Napoli.

“Victories in both are required, if not, we try to play the extra round and then go to the next round,” remarked Maresca, whose next appointment is a match against an Everton team whose recent consistency has taken to them to the dizzy heights of the top half in the domestic league.

Side Stories

Notable Comment: “You know, it’s somewhat ironic because his greatest wish was me becoming a professional golfer. That was his biggest dream. So when I was 10, he forced me to take up golf. So I practiced every week from when I was 10 to 13” – a star striker revealed how, if his father had his preference, he could have been on the golf course rather than tearing it up in the Premier League.

Readers' Letters

“So, no wonder Wolves are in such a sad state. As any regular reader of this column will know, the only good 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 see that a reader not only got Tuesday’s featured letter, but also a mention 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 regularity of appearances in your mailbag is inversely proportional to the success of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – another fan.