With a little break until Chelsea play again, the Blues are preparing themselves for a 10-day period that will go some way to defining Enzo Maresca’s debut season at Stamford Bridge.
Starting from next Thursday, where the west Londoners make the trip to Denmark to take on Copenhagen in the first leg of the UEFA Conference League round of 16, there are four games in the space of 10 days for Maresca and his players to contend with. After the European trip, Leicester City come to Stamford Bridge on Sunday afternoon before the Blues welcome Copenhagen to SW6 for the second leg on the Thursday night and then a trip to Arsenal before the international break.
Two Conference League games and two in the Premier League. Chelsea are overriding favourites to progress into the quarter-final of the European competition, while Leicester, sitting 19th in the Premier League table, will be enormous underdogs coming to west London. The game against Arsenal really stands out as one where Chelsea need to make a statement.
Against an injury-riddled, short-of-confidence Arsenal side that have more or less seen their title hopes fade away in recent days with Liverpool now 13 points clear, Chelsea should be looking to finally beat a so-called ‘big six’ side away from home. Playing against the big six teams – consisting of Chelsea themselves, Liverpool, Arsenal, the two Manchester clubs and Tottenham – the Blues have won just one match all season-long; coming away at Spurs in December.
Incidentally, that was Chelsea’s last away win in the Premier League – a run that stretches back almost three months at the time of writing. An opening weekend defeat to Manchester City could be viewed as unfortunate given how well Chelsea played that day and it being Maresca’s first competitive match in charge of the Blues.
However, City completed the double over Chelsea in January with a 3-1 win at the Etihad Stadium. The Blues were beaten at Liverpool at Anfield in October and are yet to play the runaway leaders at home, with their meeting at Stamford Bridge scheduled for May.
Chelsea drew with Manchester United in November at Old Trafford in what was a really poor performance from the Blues on that day. Maresca’s side also drew 1-1 with Arsenal just seven days after the game in Manchester with Pedro Neto levelling the match for the west Londoners with 20 minutes remaining.
It feels like Maresca needs a statement win. Chelsea’s form recently has been poor and they will be hoping the victory over Southampton on Tuesday evening will help build some momentum. Leicester await, a game where there are no excuses not to record three points, and a trip to Arsenal. A much different, and trickier, match for Chelsea but a real opportunity to send a statement. Make no mistake about it, the Gunners are there for the taking at the moment.
Before that, though, the focus will be on Copenhagen. It is really interesting to see just how strong Maresca goes for the remainder of the tournament. In the league phase, that Chelsea finished with a maximum of 18 points, Maresca used his fringe players throughout given the level of opposition they were facing.
Naturally, being in the last 16 now, the opposition should be increasing in quality. Cole Palmer has of course been called into the squad list after being left out in the league phase due to load management. Whether or not he starts on Thursday, however, remains to be seen.
Of the 25 players used throughout the league phase, six of them left the club in the January transfer window, either on loan or on a permanent basis, while Mykhailo Mudryk is provisionally suspended following a failed drugs test back in December. One man, though, that played a big part in the Blues’ opening six matches and remains at the club is Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.
Signed for £30million last summer from Leicester, it has been a slow start to life in west London for the English midfielder. In the Premier League, Dewsbury-Hall has only been on the pitch for 179 minutes but in Europe, he has been used for almost 500 and the two legs coming up against Copenhagen feels like an enormous opportunity for the midfielder to prove himself.
The 26-year-old has been used in a variety of positions under Maresca, who he followed to Stamford Bridge from the King Power Stadium following the Foxes’ promotion, but is yet to cement a spot of his own down. In the Conference League, he has quite often been used in the double pivot and then allowed to roam forward with a full-back inverting.
With Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez playing so much football recently, there may well be a rest for the duo in Denmark next week, meaning Dewsbury-Hall could be deployed in the middle of the pitch for the Blues. Wherever he does play, he needs to leave an impression on Maresca, who has admitted numerous times that it has been extremely difficult for the midfielder to change his mindset from being one of the stars at Leicester to a fringe player at Chelsea.
Speaking in November, Maresca said this on Dewsbury-Hall: “Kiernan was, at Leicester, the most important player. He moved to Chelsea to be one other player. You have to accept that.
“Probably at the beginning, you struggle to accept that. Now it’s getting better. Me as a manager, I am very happy with Kiernan, no doubt. But for sure for him, he has to continue to work, wait for the chance and take it, in the way he is doing in the Conference League. He is doing okay.”
