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Although Chelsea avoided a total demolition of their hopes of finishing in the highest eight places of the Bigger Cup opening phase, they executed a precise, surgical strike on their own chances of waltzing straight into the round of 16. Of course, 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 Concern: A Monotonous Inconsistency

Sadly for the club's supporters, the only consistent thing about the Chelsea team is a reliably erratic inconsistency, which has been much remarked upon since their defeat in Bergamo. After seemingly confirming their credentials with an commanding victory of Barcelona, and then a bad-tempered draw with a London rival, the team have been defeated by a Championship side, played out a dull draw at Bournemouth and have now lost against a mid-table side from Italy's top flight.

While critics have been eager to point the finger on a selection policy that seems to see Enzo Maresca rotate his team like a kebab shop’s elephant leg of doner meat, the manager maintains that, knack and naughty step permitting, the core of his first eleven for big matches is mostly fixed.

“I think in that game, first XI, we had on the field the majority of the team that play against Tottenham, they play against Barca, they play against Wolverhampton, the Gunners,” he droned. “There were eight, nine players that are the ones consistently selected for matches of this magnitude. So if you see the several alterations 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 be victorious in their final two group games. First up, they host this season’s surprise package a Cypriot team, then travel back to the continent to face the Serie A champions, Napoli.

“Victories in both are required, if not, we try to play the playoff and then progress to the next round,” remarked the Italian coach, whose following fixture is a game against an Merseyside team whose current form has propelled them to the surprising position of seventh in the Premier League.

Other Notes

Quote of the Day: “You know, it’s actually funny because his greatest wish was me becoming a professional golfer. That was his ultimate ambition. 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 teeing off rather than scoring goals in the Premier League.

Readers' Letters

“Well, no wonder Wolverhampton Wanderers are in such a sad state. As any longtime reader of this column will know, the only effective pre-match protests involve marching from a pub that the supporters planned to be at anyway, to the ground that they were inevitably going to. Just showing up 10 minutes late? That’s how long it takes fans to get to their seats anyway” – a correspondent.

“I see that a reader not only got the previous 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 the city be proving that the regularity of appearances in your letters section is inversely proportional to the value of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – a different supporter.