🔗 Share this article Maresca's Constant Lineup Shuffling Has Chelsea Off Balance. While Chelsea didn’t completely torpedo their hopes of ending up in the highest eight places of the European competition group stage, they executed a targeted blow on their own hopes of strolling directly into the knockout stages. Of course, the silver lining is that in the short one-year history of the recently revamped competition, securing a top-eight finish isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The Core Problem: A Monotonous Inconsistency Unfortunately for Stamford Bridge regulars, the only consistent thing about the Chelsea team is a monotonously predictable inconsistency, which has been widely discussed since their defeat in Bergamo. After seemingly confirming their quality with an impressive beat-down of a European giant, and then a feisty stalemate with Arsenal, Chelsea have been defeated by a Championship side, played out a snoozy stalemate at the south coast club and have now been beaten by a average team from Serie A. While critics have been eager to point the finger on a team selection approach that appears to see Enzo Maresca rotate his team constantly, the manager insists that, injuries and suspensions aside, the nucleus of his first eleven for games against strong opposition is mostly fixed. “In my view in that game, starting team, we had on the field the majority of the team that play against Tottenham, they played against Barca, they played against Wolves, Arsenal,” he droned. “There were eight, nine players that are the ones playing every time for these kind of games. So if you look at the several alterations that we did compared to previous game, it’s a different situation.” The Path Forward For a genuine opportunity of escaping the additional knockout round, they will have to win their final two group games. In the first, they welcome the unexpected contenders Pafos, then travel back to the continent to face the Italian title holders, Napoli. “Victories in both are required, if not, we try to play the playoff and then go to the following stage,” remarked the Italian coach, whose following fixture is a game against an Merseyside team whose current form has taken to them to the dizzy heights of seventh in the Premier League. Side Stories Notable Comment: “It's interesting, it’s actually funny because his biggest dream was me turning pro in golf. That was his biggest dream. 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 revealed how, if his father had his preference, he could have been on the golf course rather than scoring goals in the top flight. Fan Correspondence “So, no wonder Wolves are in such a sad state. As any regular reader of this column will know, the only effective pre-match protests involve walking from a public house that the supporters intended to visit anyway, to the stadium 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 note that one correspondent not only got Tuesday’s featured letter, but also a mention in another reader's letter. On a night where both clubs from Sheffield once more dropped points after leading, I am wondering: could Sheffield be proving that the frequency of representation in your letters section is inversely related to the success of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – a different supporter.