Joao Felix a cut above the rest as Chelsea's second-string send Conference League statement | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca flexes muscle as Blues make light work of Panathanikos on emotional evening

Another Thursday night in the Conference League and another flexing of muscle from the continent’s most glittering second-string side.

Of those, Joao Felix and the much-maligned Mykhailo Mudryk grabbed it best, scoring the first three goals between them and, in Felix’s case, winning the penalty from which Christopher Nkunku added the fourth.

For Mudryk, meanwhile, a determined header from Pedro Neto’s cross brought a first goal in any competition this season. Coupled with assists for both Felix strikes, this was among the Ukrainian’s most positive nights in a Chelsea shirt and timely at that, after he had failed even to make the bench at Anfield on Sunday. A broad smile and celebratory hug with Maresca after his goal had effectively settled the contest suggested there are no hard feelings over that call.

No hard feelings: Mudryk embraced Maresca following his dropping at Liverpool

AP

It was a more controlled, composed showing than the 4-2 win over Gent with which Chelsea began their campaign before the international break, executed in what Maresca conceded was a “complicated” atmosphere as the hosts paid tribute to George Baldock.

This was Panathanikos’s first home game since the 31-year-old was found dead in his swimming pool barely a fortnight ago. Before kick-off, the crowd at Athens’s Olympic Stadium held placards bearing his shirt number, 32, as David Bowie’s ‘Starman’ played, the tune adopted for the defender’s chant during his long spell at Sheffield United.

For Maresca personally, too, this occasion came with a sombre tint. The Blues boss spoke on Wednesday of how trips to Athens evoke mixed memories: he spent a largely happy season with Panathanikos’s cross-city rivals Olympiacos as a player, but also turned out against them for Sevilla in an emotional first game after friend and teammate Antonio Puerta had passed away in 2007.

The Greeks channeled the emotion best from kick-off and went close early on, Filip Jorgensen producing a fine save to keep out Tin Jedvaj’s header after Chelsea’s high defensive line had again been exposed, this time from a set-piece.

This was a good night for Jorgensen, who came through concussion protocols to play and put pressure on Robert Sanchez, whose iffy league form has brought fresh doubt over his place as No1.

A first clean sheet in a month, since the 5-0 thrashing of League One side Barrow, would have been of great satisfaction to Maresca, who has prickled when quizzed about his side’s defensive frailties in recent weeks.

Instead, former Manchester United winger Facundo Pellestri grabbed a consolation at the end of a fine move to make it five games in a row in which the Blues’s backline has been breached.

That will continue to nag at the manager, with games against Newcastle, Manchester United and Arsenal to come across the next three weekends in the Premier League. In Europe, though, Chelsea are cruising, a run deep into the knockout stages of this competition already feeling an inevitability.