Chelsea take on Panathinaikos tonight in what should be an exciting Conference League encounter in Athens. There’s not a huge amount riding on this game given how easily the Blues are expected to qualify for the knockout rounds in this competition, so the excitement and tension is best found in looking at individual players who will take part and need to impress, all for very different reasons.
We’ve picked out three of them here:
The way Enzo Maresca reshuffled his team at the weekend in response to suspensions meant that Reece James came in on the right and Malo Gusto shifted to the left. Renato Veiga should be back in for some minutes here, but with James available on the right, freeing Gusto to play on the left, Veiga has proper competition for his backup team left back spot for the first time this season. Marc Cucurella should get a few minutes too, but he’s established in the first team and the real battle is between Veiga, Chilwell and an inverted Gusto to be his backup.
In the case of Tosin Adarabioyo, it’s less a case of showing what he can do and more a case of undoing the damage done in his 53 minutes on the pitch at the weekend, replacing Wesley Fofana. Tosin had a shaky game at Anfield, and needs to respond with a comfortable outing here.
Christopher Nkunku is our third choice. He’s under no pressure to prove himself – everyone knows he’s world class. But he’s got a great chance here to really force Maresca’s hand into using him from the start this weekend. After two bad league results in a row and with Jadon Sancho looking suddenly droppable in attack, Nkunku can really turn the screw here and make it impossible to leave him out when we play Newcastle on Sunday.
