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While The Blues avoided a total demolition of their chances of finishing in the highest eight places of the continental tournament group stage, they performed a precise, surgical strike on their own chances of waltzing straight into the round of 16. Naturally, 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 isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Central Problem: A Monotonous Inconsistency

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 following their loss in Bergamo. After apparently rubber-stamping their quality with an impressive beat-down of Barcelona, followed by a feisty stalemate with a London rival, Chelsea have been defeated by Leeds, played out a snoozy stalemate at Bournemouth and have now lost against a mid-table side from Serie A.

Although critics have been eager to point the finger on a team selection approach that appears to see the coach rotate his team incessantly, the manager insists that, injuries and suspensions aside, the nucleus of his first eleven for games against strong opposition is largely set in stone.

“In my view in that game, starting team, we had on the field the majority of the team that play against Spurs, they played against Barca, they play against Wolves, the Gunners,” he stated. “We had eight, nine players that are the ones playing every time for matches of this magnitude. So if you see the several alterations that we did compared to Bournemouth game, it’s different.”

The Path Forward

To have any realistic chance of avoiding the Bigger Cup playoff round, they will have to win their remaining two matches. First up, they welcome the unexpected contenders a Cypriot team, before heading back to Italy to face the Italian title holders, Napoli.

“We need to win both, if not, we try to play the extra round and then progress to the next round,” remarked the Italian coach, whose following fixture is a match against an Everton team whose recent consistency has propelled them to the surprising position of seventh in the Premier League.

Other Notes

Notable Comment: “You know, it’s actually funny because his greatest wish 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” – Erling Haaland revealed how, if his father had his preference, he could have been teeing off rather than tearing it up in the top flight.

Readers' Letters

“Well, no wonder Wolverhampton Wanderers are in such a poor situation. As any regular reader of this email will know, the only effective pre-match protests involve marching from a pub that the supporters planned to be at anyway, to the stadium 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” – a correspondent.

“I note that a reader not only got the previous featured letter, but also a name check in a separate letter. On a night where both Sheffield teams again surrendered points after leading, I am wondering: could the city be proving that the frequency of appearances in your mailbag is inversely related to the value of anything our teams are achieving on the field?” – another fan.