🔗 Share this article

Although The London club avoided a total demolition of their chances of ending up in the top eight of the European competition group stage, they performed a precise, surgical strike on their own chances of automatically qualifying for the round of 16. Of course, the good news is that in the short one-year history of the new and not-necessarily-improved tournament, securing a place in the top eight isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The Central Issue: A Monotonous Lack of Consistency

Unfortunately for the club's supporters, the only consistent thing about Enzo Maresca’s side is a reliably erratic lack of consistency, which has been widely discussed following their loss in Bergamo. Since seemingly confirming their credentials with an commanding victory of a European giant, and then a bad-tempered draw with Arsenal, the team have been defeated by Leeds, played out a snoozy stalemate at Bournemouth and have now been beaten by a average team from Italy's top flight.

While critics have been eager to point the finger on a team selection approach that seems to see the coach rotate his team constantly, the manager insists that, injuries and suspensions aside, the nucleus 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 the majority of the team that play against Tottenham, they played against Barcelona, they played against Wolverhampton, the Gunners,” he droned. “There were most of the regulars that are the ones consistently selected for matches of this magnitude. So if you see the five changes that we did from the Bournemouth game, it’s different.”

The Path Forward

For a genuine opportunity of avoiding the Bigger Cup playoff round, they will have to win their final two group games. In the first, they host this season’s surprise package a Cypriot team, then travel back to the continent to face the Italian title holders, the Neapolitan side.

“We need to win both, if not, we will face the playoff and then go to the following stage,” sniffed Maresca, whose next appointment is a match against an Merseyside team whose current form has propelled them to the dizzy heights of seventh in the Premier League.

Other Notes

Quote of the Day: “It's interesting, it’s somewhat ironic because his biggest dream was me turning pro in golf. That was his biggest dream. So when I was 10, he pushed me to take up golf. So I played golf every week from when I was 10 to 13” – Erling Haaland revealed how, had his dad got his way, he could have been teeing off rather than scoring goals in the Premier League.

Fan Correspondence

“So, no wonder Wolverhampton Wanderers are in such a sad state. As any longtime 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 inevitably going to. Just showing up 10 minutes late? That’s how long it takes fans to get to their seats anyway” – one reader.

“I see that one correspondent not only got Tuesday’s featured letter, but also a name check in another reader's letter. On a night where both clubs from Sheffield once more dropped points after leading, I am wondering: could the city be proving that the regularity of representation in your letters section is inversely proportional to the value of anything our teams are achieving on the field?” – a different supporter.