Chelsea facing major new selection dilemma as Enzo Maresca prepares for crucial week | OneFootball

Blues boss must now navigate the gruelling Thursday/Sunday grind without the luxury of rotating his whole team

Your matchday briefing on Chelsea, featuring team news and expert analysis from Malik Ouzia

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The first week in March did not have the look of a particularly testing one for Enzo Maresca when Chelsea were on the charge in mid-December.

The first leg of a Conference League last-16 tie against opponents unknown seemed unlikely to bear many demons for a side on their way to routing the league phase with a perfect six wins from six. Nor did a home meeting with Maresca’s former club Leicester, given Chelsea had just beaten the strugglers away from home to start a run of five straight wins in the Premier League.

The Conference League, which for Chelsea resumes in Copenhagen on Thursday evening, remains at the Blues’s mercy, with bookmakers rating it more likely than not that Reece James hoists the trophy in Wroclaw at the end of May.

The sense of that outcome as an inevitability, though, has been eroded. There is a fresh vulnerability about Maresca’s side, not least because 50 per cent of every tie between now and then will be played away from Stamford Bridge.

Chelsea’s record on the road since the end of the Conference League league phase is abysmal: seven games across all competitions, no wins and more defeats (five) than goals (four).

For the first time this season Maresca will have to navigate the notorious Thursday-Sunday turnaround without the luxury of Chelsea’s early season super strength

Copenhagen, who reached the last 16 of the Champions League before falling to Manchester City last season, carry greater name recognition than most of the contenders left in the third-tier competition and perhaps greater threat, too. Though they finished only 19th in the league phase, the Danish side have just come through a knockout play-off against Heidenheim, who gave Chelsea easily their most awkward game of the competition so far.

As big a factor as the opposition, though, is the change within at Chelsea. Maresca has spoken in recent weeks about needing to convince his team that they are still the same side as they were pre-Christmas, but as far as the makeup of his European contingent is concerned that is quite literally not the case.

Cesare Casadei, Joao Felix, Axel Disasi and Renato Veiga were all regulars during the league phase but have since been allowed to leave on loan, while Mykhailo Mudryk is suspended and Marc Guiu, the joint-top scorer in the Conference League, is injured. Others like Christopher Nkunku, Tosin Adarabioyo and, to a lesser extent, Enzo Fernandez, who once relied on this competition for the bulk of their minutes, have since become Premier League regulars out of necessity.

It means that for the first time this season Maresca will have to navigate the notorious Thursday-Sunday turnaround without the luxury of what was the Blues’s early season super strength; namely the ability to field two separate XIs of senior players to handle competition on twin fronts.

Now the Italian must either send a number of his star names out in Copenhagen ahead of a must-win game against Leicester in the Premier League, or else rely even more than usual on youth and perhaps the insurance policy of knowing there is a home leg to come at Stamford Bridge.

That, though, comes just three days before a trip to Arsenal and you suspect Maresca would prefer to have the tie won. Assuming Chelsea see off Leicester in the same comfortable manner as they did fellow strugglers Southampton last weekend, it is at the Emirates where the idea that the Blues have turned a corner in their top-four push will truly be put to the test.

Cole Palmer, who sat out the league phase in Europe, is now available having been one of three additions to Chelsea’s European squad mid-season, along with Trevoh Chalobah and new signing Mathis Amougou.

But the fact that academy graduates Shim Mheuka and Sam Rak-Sakyi were left out of Under-21 action against Manchester City on Friday night suggests they are in line to feature and, given the shortage of cover in midfield and attack, perhaps even take starting roles.