Chelsea have been one of the most improved teams in European football, as they sat third in the Premier League table before Brighton’s early start to Matchday 13 and are clear favorites in the Conference League, following a 2-0 win over one of the competition’s better sides in Heidenheim.
It’s been a nearly ideal start to life at Stamford Bridge for new manager Enzo Maresca, whose appointment from Leicester City came after Chelsea passed up on bigger names, leading to healthy skepticism.
So far, Maresca has answered his critics, and he’s helped a few Chelsea players find their best level this season – most namely midfielder Moises Caicedo, who has arguably been even better than 2023/24 Premier League Player of the Season candidate Cole Palmer.
Chelsea could still have a few more breakout stars in the English top flight this season, too, and here are three talented players on the Blues who have made a serious case for more minutes in London.
FW Christopher Nkunku
The list obviously has to start with Christopher Nkunku, whose knock against Heidenheim on Thursday, thankfully, doesn’t appear to be anything worth worrying about.
Any injury to Nkunku is going to cause headlines, because injuries have been the main thing holding back the 2021/22 Ballon d’Or contender from truly shining at Stamford Bridge.
Since arriving from RB Leipzig on a pre-arranged deal last season, Nkunku has struggled to stay fit, but when he does play, you begin to see why he’s a cut above the rest of his teammates on a technical level.
The Nkunku and Palmer duo is the best Premier League attacking tandem just waiting to break out, and many Chelsea fans are simply waiting for a healthy string of games from the former Bundesliga Player of the Season – and for Maresca to finally give him that chance in the Premier League.
Because in the Conference League, Nkunku keeps showing that he has the tools to be one of Chelsea’s best players. Yes, it’s many steps below the competition the Blues see on a weekly basis in England, but he still stands out among his peers, including with a very slick finish to open the scoring at Heidenheim.
Nkunku needed only 437 Premier League minutes to score 3 goals last season, and we are talking about a player with a resume of two 16-goal and two 13-assist seasons in his career – nobody else on this team has done that.
Every time Nkunku is on the pitch, he looks like one of the best players in the Premier League from both a goal-scoring and playmaking perspective, just as he was in the Bundesliga.
The challenge for Maresca will be finding the best spot for him in the lineup, but the idea of having him across from a true winger like Pedro Neto on the right is appealing.
Nkunku has the versatility to play virtually anywhere in the attack, which he already proved for a Champions League side in Leipzig. With Nicolas Jackson at striker and Palmer in the attacking midfield as players for him to combine with, a healthy Nkunku is an X-Factor who could elevate Chelsea to second in the Premiership.
GK Filip Jorgensen
It’s baffling that Chelsea decided to roll with Robert Sanchez as their starter in the Premier League, because Filip Jorgensen was already better than the Spaniard last season in LaLiga in his first season as a starter.
Jorgensen fully deserved his transfer to Chelsea after establishing himself as one of the best young goalkeepers in European football, saving 72.2 percent of the shots he faced.
On Thursday night at Heidenheim, Jorgensen produced perhaps the finest performance of the Conference League thus far in goal, making several stunning saves to keep a clean sheet that the defenders in front of him didn’t deserve to be a part of.
Jorgensen made the kinds of saves with regularity that Sanchez does not, and as much as people throw around the world “upside” with Sanchez, it is the 22-year-old Jorgensen who offers much more than that without any of the negatives.
Sanchez’s knack for mistakes bit Chelsea badly last season, so Maresca’s loyalty to him as the incoming manager was especially puzzling. Now is as good of a time as ever to start Jorgensen after a banner performance on a European night.
I get the appeal of having a cup and league goalkeeper, but the league is more important to Chelsea in this case. Jorgensen should be the starter in the Premier League, and if Maresca really insists on giving Sanchez minutes, then he should leave them for the Conference League when he’ll, usually, have a huge cushion of goals.
LW Mykhaylo Mudryk
Mykhaylo Mudryk is a bit of a controversial pick, because he, like Joao Felix, looks like one of those players who is always going to be even better than you’d normally expect against weaker competition.
A lot of that is because of his sheer athletic dominance as one of the fastest and most explosive wingers on the planet, but a part of that can be attributed to him having more confidence to execute the difficult finishes he is capable of when he has more space and less pressure.
That’s something Enzo Maresca needs to work on him with instead of saying weird things like “Misha is Misha” to the press, because even if he thinks Mudryk isn’t dealing with a confidence issue, denying it to the press and effectively throwing a young, high-priced player under the bus when he obviously receives great media scrutiny is a sure way to create a confidence issue.
Mudryk was excellent against Heidenheim, who are probably comparable to a mid-table team in the Premier League when they are playing at home on a European night.
There’s no reasonable way to argue that Mudryk should be starting every week for Chelsea, and he shouldn’t play just because of a desire to make good on his initial 70-100 million euro price tag.
However, Mudryk has earned more than his current log of 146 Premier League minutes and one start on the merits of his play in the Conference League and the positive traits he brings to Chelsea that nobody else does.
Mudryk is Chelsea’s best player at producing something out of nothing, he is their fastest player, he is their most explosive athlete, and he has the most upside of any out-and-out winger on the team at 23. Maresca could afford to gamble with him, even just a little bit more.
The managing editor of The Trivela Effect, Kevin has 15 years of experience in digital media. He covered Real Madrid from 2019-2022 for The Real Champs as a site manager. You can contact him at the site’s official Twitter handle @TrivelaEffect or via the site’s official email thetrivelaeffect@gmail.com.