🔗 Share this article

While The London club avoided a total demolition of their prospects of finishing in the highest eight places of the Bigger Cup opening phase, they executed a precise, surgical strike on their own chances of strolling directly into the knockout stages. Of course, the silver lining is that in the brief 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 Core Issue: A Monotonous Lack of Consistency

Sadly 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 defeat in Bergamo. After seemingly confirming their quality with an impressive beat-down of Barcelona, followed by a bad-tempered draw with a London rival, the team have been defeated by a Championship side, played out a dull draw at the south coast club and have now lost against a average team from Italy's top flight.

Although pundits have been quick to lay the blame on a team selection approach that seems to see Enzo Maresca rotate his team like a kebab shop’s elephant leg of doner meat, the manager insists that, knack and naughty step permitting, the nucleus of his starting lineup for games against strong opposition is mostly fixed.

“I think in that game, starting team, we had inside the pitch the majority of the team that featured against Spurs, they play against Barca, they played against Wolves, the Gunners,” he stated. “We had most of the regulars 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

For a genuine opportunity of avoiding the additional knockout round, they will have to be victorious in their remaining two matches. First up, they host this season’s surprise package a Cypriot team, then travel back to Italy to face the Italian title holders, Napoli.

“Victories in both are required, if not, we will face the playoff and then go to the following stage,” sniffed Maresca, whose following fixture is a game against an Everton team whose current form has propelled them to the dizzy heights of the top half in the Premier League.

Side Stories

Notable Comment: “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 start on golf. So I practiced every week from when I was 10 to 13” – a star striker explained how, had his dad got his way, he could have been teeing off rather than tearing it up in the Premier League.

Fan Correspondence

“So, no wonder Wolverhampton Wanderers are in such a poor situation. As any regular reader of this column will know, the only good pre-match protests involve marching from a pub that the supporters planned to be at anyway, to the ground 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 one correspondent not only got the previous featured letter, but also a name check in another reader's letter. On a night where both Sheffield teams once more dropped points after leading, I am led to ponder: could the city be proving that the frequency of representation in your letters section is inversely related to the value of anything our teams are accomplishing on the field?” – a different supporter.