Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca will take a much-changed squad to Kazakhstan for tomorrow’s Conference League clash with Astana – with Noni Madueke one of his biggest players not travelling.
Chelsea have swept their games in Europe’s third tier, winning all four to go top of the table and virtually guarantee automatic qualification to the round of 16.
With a busy festive period approaching and an eight-hour flight to contend with, Maresca admits he will have a youthful appearance on his side.
Asked if this game was an opportunity to rest the senior players, he said: “Some of them will be here (in England) and some of them will fly with us. More or less we will try to do it in the same way as we have done until today. We have a lot of young players with us and the rest will be here working.”
5,606 km away from home for our next one #UECL conflict. ✈️🌏 pic.twitter.com/5KPsk3MuFj
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) December 11, 2024
Madueke will remain in the UK with the England winger poised to return to the starting line-up for the game against Brentford at the weekend with Pedro Neto suspended after being booked in Sunday’s thrilling 4-3 win at Spurs.
Encouraging update on Acheampong
Teenager Josh Acheampong is likely to start tomorrow with Maresca revealing the highly-rated defender is close to agreeing a new contract after a row reportedly left him frozen out.
The Italian said: “With Josh everything is clear. We all love Josh, the club loves Josh, I love Josh and we’re trying to find a deal. We are close, we are almost there. We’ll see.
He is in the squad and will probably play from the start.
Chelsea are overwhelming favorites to win the Conference League, but Maresca was not looking that far ahead, preferring to focus on the here and now.
“No, I’ve already said about this competition that the main goal is to go to the next phase and the next,” he said. “The goal is to go to the next one and if we get the next one, then the next one. I don’t like to think about things in four or five months.
“It’s not about ambition. I’m quite ambitious and the players and the club are ambitious, but in my opinion if you think about things in four or five months, then you can lose a bit of focus on the now.”
Players will stay on English time
A trip to Kazakhstan is a logistical challenge, but Chelsea’s players will stay on England time in a bid to minimize disruption.
Maresca said: “We have a session now and then we will fly there. We will have dinner and go to bed. Luckily, it’s five hours ahead of us, so when we wake up tomorrow it will already be midday here in England.
“We’ll be there less than 24 hours, but it’s definitely longer the flight and the temperature (-11 C). On Friday morning we’ll land around 6am in London and it’s already Friday and we’ve got a game on Sunday but we’ve got to play.”
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