Chelsea welcome Manchester United to Stamford Bridge on Thursday night for a football match that, like last Sunday’s game between Manchester City and Arsenal, is almost entirely impossible to predict – albeit for completely different reasons. With the benefit of hindsight we can probably forecast that it will be more entertaining, a bit like chancing across two drunk, washed-up prizefighters swinging haymakers at each other in a pub car park. At the start of this season the notion that an April league fixture between Chelsea and Manchester United would be between struggling to finish fifth and a team struggling to get into the top half of the table was unlikely but not entirely implausible. It is a measure of how far and quickly these two once-mighty clubs have fallen that less than a decade ago it would have been unthinkable.

Big Cup winners three years ago, Chelsea currently sit 12th in the table behind, in no particular order … five of the traditional Big Six, Aston Villa, three different teams that were tipped for relegation before a ball was kicked this season, a team so consistently ravaged by knack in recent months that their mascot Monty the Magpie could get a game against Fulham this Saturday, and a club whose manager is unpopular with at least half the fanbase because his team is too defensive and boring. Of course if anything sums up the chaotic manner in which Chelsea has been run since being taken over by Clearlake Capital, it is the fact that they are also in a worse league position than their feeder club Brighton, from whom they have recruited several overpriced and underperforming players, a manager and most of his coaching staff who have since left the building, not to mention two of the south-coast club’s recruitment team. Indeed, so high is the number of millions that Chelsea’s owners have hosed in the direction of the Amex Stadium that one suspects it might have been more financially prudent for them to just buy Brighton instead.

They have also shovelled plenty of dosh into Mauricio Pochettino’s bank account and for a man whose team is so underwhelming the Argentinian seems to be getting a remarkably easy ride. It’s certainly the case compared to other top-flight managers who are failing to deliver the goods, one of whom he will be up against on Thursday. Chelsea go into their latest game on the back of a dismal and somewhat fortuitous draw with a basement-dwelling Burnley side that played over half last weekend’s game at Stamford Bridge with just 10 men. Having watched his players sleepwalk through yet another 90 minutes, an exasperated Pochettino has hit upon the novel solution of – Football Daily checks notes – suggesting they wake up earlier.

Having told reporters that even after 15 years as a coach he still arrives at the training at or before the crack of dawn because he is desperate to keep pushing himself, he reckons his players should adopt a similar approach rather than think they can take it easy because they’ve hit the big time by signing for Chelsea. “What do [the players] need to do? It is to arrive early. It is to work more. It is to run more. It is to be more focused. It is not now to arrive to Chelsea and [think] I am so good because people believe that I am so good but I do the minimum effort. No, it is more responsibility now. For us, we feel the responsibility. Never be in a comfort zone. If you are in a comfort zone, you drop your level, you drop your standards.” And in Chelsea’s case, you drop down the Premier League table like a ton of bricks.

Join Will Unwin from 7.30pm BST for hot minute-by-minute coverage of Liverpool 4-0 Sheffield United, while Tim de Lisle will be on deck at 8.15pm for updates from Chelsea 1-1 Manchester United.

“It was something horrible and I could not stop myself. It was a very sad and ugly thing that they were saying. I grabbed him and asked why he was insulting me. My attitude was not aggressive, I just wanted to ask him why” – Spanish football’s commitment to combatting racism is under fire again after Rayo Majadahonda keeper Cheikh Sarr was handed a two-match ban for going into the stands to confront a man who had allegedly racially abused him during a third-tier match at Sestao River Club, which was then abandoned. “It seems the offender gets off scot-free … the message seems to be that anything goes,” added Rayo skipper Jorge Casado.

I know there is next to nothing written about non-league football teams, but the heartbreaking news of the year so far is that Luke Garrard, sainted manager of Boreham Wood FC, the team that beat Bournemouth in the fourth round of the FA Cup a couple of seasons ago, is leaving the club after eight and a half years in charge (and he’s still only 38). This link is the club statement and is testament to how some manager departures should be announced – with dignity” – Geoff Hall.

Andrew Pechey makes an excellent point (yesterday’s Football Daily letters). He notes that Noble Francis got ignored for prizeless letter o’ the day earlier in the week, only to receive the gong for a somewhat lesser submission yesterday. With that in mind, may I direct you to my work published on 12 and 19 March. If readers are gonna get this meta, so am I” – Mike Wilner.

The moniker Big Sir Jim Ratcliffe (Football Daily passim) just doesn’t feel right to me. Surely he’s been big for quite some time, likely throughout his entire adult life and almost certainly prior to his knighthood? Ergo, Big Jim was knighted rather than Sir Jim became Big, post-gong? Sir Big Jim works better in my view. A pedantic point but surely an important one?” – Martin Fisher.

Send letters to [email protected]. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … Martin Fisher.

Former South Africa youth international Luke Fleurs, who played for Kaizer Chiefs, has been killed in a car hijacking in Johannesburg. The 24-year-old was shot in the chest at a petrol station and the assailants drove off in his vehicle.

Around 50 people have been arrested and several injured in riots caused by fans after Dinamo Zagreb won 1-0 at Hajduk Split in the Croatian Cup semi-finals. “There is no justification for violence and I strictly condemn the riots and destruction of property that occurred in and around the stadium after the game,” said Ivica Puljak, mayor of Split. “I’m sorry for such scenes and I hope we never see them again in our city.”

Tests conducted on Arsenal and Norway midfielder Frida Maanum have shown “no obvious cardiac causes” following her collapse in the Conti Cup final, but she will have a device fitted to monitor her heart function.

Pending Liverpool’s rout of the Blades, it’s as you were in the Premier League, with Arsenal on top – for now – after a 2-0 win over Luton, and Manchester City hot on their heels having swatted aside Aston Villa 4-1. “He has goals in his veins and he has to use this,” whooped Pep Guardiola of Phil Foden’s match-winning hat-trick.

Jürgen Klopp reckons Liverpool will not focus on improving their goal difference against Sheffield United. “I want to win the game first – the result I’m not bothered about,” he cooed. “Sheffield are in their best spell in the last two games and have been a bit unlucky with the results maybe. They have an idea.”

Lucy Bronze has challenged the Lionesses to become the first England team to win the same major tournament twice in a row as they begin their Euro 2025 qualifying campaign against Sweden on Friday. “It’s difficult in any tournament, whether it’s the WSL [or Big Cup], but it would be a next-level achievement to do that on an international stage,” she roared.

Fresh off Burnley’s £27.9m loss for the year ending 31 July 2023, boss Vincent Kompany isn’t in the mood to talk about cash. “You’re asking me this – it’s a three-game week and in 48 hours we’ve got one of the most important games of the season,” he sniffed. “What benefit is that to me to start talking to you about the accounts of the club?”

And League Two basement side Carlisle United have launched an investigation after an incident involving several first-team players on Saturday night. “We take these issues seriously and it is being dealt with internally by the club,” said manager Paul Simpson. “Our focus is on working professionally as we look towards another important game at the weekend.”

After Morocco staged arguably the best-organised Wafcon in 2022, this year’s edition, set for the same country, was hoped to raise the profile of the women’s game in the continent further. But now it may not even go ahead at all. Osasu Obayiuwana has more in this extract from our sister email’s latest edition.

Even at 37, with a visible paunch and chronic knee-knack, Luis Suárez is upstaging Leo Messi in Miami. Ryan Baldi reports.

May 1974 and Rod Stewart is celebrating his Scottish roots on the day they stuck it to England 2-0 at Hampden in the Home Championship. A pair of own goals from Mike Pejic and Colin Todd did for the visitors that day. Cue the gladrags.