🔗 Share this article Maresca's Constant Rotation Puts Chelsea Spinning. Although The London club avoided a total demolition of their chances of ending up in the top eight of the European competition opening phase, they performed a precise, surgical strike on their own hopes of strolling directly into the knockout stages. Of course, the good news is that in the brief history of the new and not-necessarily-improved tournament, achieving a top-eight finish isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The Central Issue: 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 much remarked upon since their defeat in Bergamo. Since apparently rubber-stamping their quality with an commanding victory of Barcelona, and then a feisty stalemate with a London rival, Chelsea have been stuffed by Leeds, played out a snoozy stalemate at Bournemouth and have now been beaten by a average team from Italy's top flight. Although critics have been eager to point the finger on a selection policy that appears to see the coach rotate his team incessantly, the manager insists that, injuries and suspensions aside, the core of his starting lineup for big matches is largely set in stone. “In my view in that game, first XI, we had inside the pitch eight, nine players that play against Tottenham, they play against Barca, they play against Wolves, the Gunners,” he droned. “There were most of the regulars that are the ones playing every time for matches of this magnitude. So if you look at the several alterations that we did from the previous game, it’s different.” What Comes Next For a genuine opportunity of escaping the additional knockout round, Chelsea will have to win their remaining two matches. In the first, they host the unexpected contenders Pafos, then travel back to Italy to face the Italian title holders, Napoli. “We need to win both, otherwise, we will face the extra round and then progress to the following stage,” remarked the Italian coach, whose next appointment is a game against an Merseyside team whose current form has propelled them to the surprising position of seventh in the domestic league. Side Stories Quote of the Day: “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 forced me to start on golf. So I practiced every week from when I was 10 to 13” – a star striker explained how, if his father had his preference, 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 sad state. As any longtime reader of this email will know, the only good pre-match protests involve walking from a pub that the supporters intended to visit 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 one correspondent not only got Tuesday’s letter o’ the day, but also a name check in another reader's letter. On a night where both clubs from Sheffield again surrendered points after leading, I am wondering: could Sheffield be proving that the regularity of appearances in your letters section is inversely related to the value of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – a different supporter.