Chelsea have to travel to Baku to face Qarabag tomorrow in the Champions League, and it’s a tough game for Enzo Maresca to plan for.
Of course he’d rather leave senior players back in England to recover ahead of the Premier League game this weekend, but it’s also vital that we earn 3 points in this, one of our most winnable group stage games.
Maresca discussed this balance in his presser this afternoon.
Maresca on balancing a crucial Wednesday – Saturday split
“It’s an important game because it can give us three wins in a row in the Champions League, can give us nine points and so it’s very important,” Maresca said.
“For sure we need to, again probably we need to rotate some of the players also because I think we’ll come back in London on Thursday morning, around six o’clock in the morning, and then on Saturday we have another game. So it’s a demanding schedule but we’re going to try to adapt and do our best.”
We’d imagine a similar team to the one we saw in the EFL Cup last week, with some big guns on the bench in case they’re needed. It means they will rack up some air miles and the associated fatigue, but hopefully not too many actual minutes in the pitch.
It’s vital that the B team who go out there get the job done and score a couple early to both ensure 3 points and help out the A team who are set to face Wolves on Saturday.
In other news…
Among the other topics discussed was Romeo Lavia’s fitness and availability tomorrow and on Sunday.
Maresca had a few other issues to deal with today, including Liam Delap, who should feature tomorrow for the first time since his embarrassing red a couple of weeks ago.
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