While those who travelled to Kazakhstan for yesterday's UEFA Conference League tie recovered, the rest of the Blues squad was out on the Cobham training pitch on Friday as attention turns to our upcoming Premier League match.
Chelsea booked our place in the last 16 of the Conference League with a 3-1 away win over Astana on Thursday, thanks to goals from Marc Guiu and Renato Veiga, and those who travelled were affored time to refresh and reset on Friday, to make a quick recovery from that 7,000-mile journey.
However, the members of the squad who stayed home in London were training hard, as preparations began for Sunday's visit of Brentford to Stamford Bridge in the Premier League, in another quick turnaround for the Blues following midweek European action.
It makes for difficult circumstances, given the long journey, an artificial pitch and the freezing temperatures which greeted the players in Kazakhstan, but Enzo Maresca was pleased with how the trip went after taking the victory we wanted.
‘It was a solid performance,’ said Maresca. ‘We knew it was quite cold and we tried to adapt quickly. The players did fantastically with the weather conditions, the long journey, and the pitch was not ideal for us. Overall I’m very happy for the players.'
With just two days to recover from those exertions against Astana and prepare for Sunday's match against Brentford, the Blues will need to work quickly, but have already shown we're up to the task this season. We have claimed Premier League victories after both of our previous away trips in this stage of the Conference League.