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Maresca makes most of Chelsea advantage as drab display proves enough

Star power: Enzo Fernandez was among the Chelsea players to make a difference off the bench

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On the eve of this Copenhagen contest, Marc Cucurella had urged his Chelsea team-mates to show themselves ready to challenge for “big things”.

Whether that is even possible when Europe’s third-tier club competition is your platform is up for debate, a little like trying to prove you could master a Formula 1 car by passing the Legoland driving test.

This, certainly, was not the performance of a team getting any closer to challenging for the kinds of prizes on which Enzo Maresca will eventually be judged. It was a reminder, though, that even close to their worst, Chelsea are too good not to win this one.

Conference League’s last-eight.

The goals came from Reece James and Enzo Fernandez, the latter sent on as one of three half-time substitutes as Maresca flexed what at this level is an incomparable capacity to affect matches from the bench.

In all the Italian’s five replacements cost north of £200million, which is quite something given two of them - Jadon Sancho and Levi Colwill - have not cost a penny yet.

Enzo Maresca turned to £200m of reinforcements off the bench

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None of that is criticism of those players or this club; rather it is to point out that, in more ways than one, Chelsea’s margin for misstep on the road to Wroclaw is vast.

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With a trip to Seville to face Real Betis the other possibility for Chelsea at this stage, hopes of some winter sun appeared to have gone with the draw, but the harsh winds that greeted Maresca’s side on arrival in the Danish capital on Wednesday were replaced by glorious blue skies into the early evening here.

The visiting players were met with chants of “Who are ya?” from the home ultras, already in position almost two hours before kick-off, but this was at least a meeting of two of the Conference League’s more established names.

Beyond Chelsea, only Fiorentina have a higher ranking on Uefa coefficient, though that Copenhagen could finish only 19th during the league phase suggested this particular vintage might not be up to that which reached the same stage of the Champions League only 12 months ago. Nor were they helped by missing two of their most seasoned players in Mohamed Elyounoussi and Thomas Delaney.

Chelsea certainly started like a team expecting an easy ride. They looked surprised by the intensity of their opponents and even once settled, moved the ball without any of their own. At one stage late in the first-half, home forward Elias Achouri lost a boot and had time to retrieve and replace it without being missed in his side’s low block.

Maresca’s team selection had been a confusing one. It offered hints that this is now a competition to be taken seriously, including a first appearance in the competition proper for Cole Palmer and another start for his most overworked player, Moises Caicedo.

Cole Palmer has now gone eight matches without a goal since mid-January

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But paying tribute to the group stage’s wholesale rotation policy required forcing numerous square pegs into round holes: a centre-back at right-back, a right-back in central midfield and a central midfielder on the left wing. It also featured a teenage spearhead in Shumaira Mheuka, the club’s youngest ever European starter who, at 17 years 137 days, was not alive for a single minute of Jose Mourinho’s first Chelsea reign.

The mix and match offered an indication of just how much the shape of Maresca’s squad has changed through the course of this campaign. Of the Italian’s ten most utilised players during the group stage, only five are even still available for selection. A front-three composed of two academy kids and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall felt a long way from the start of this competition, which Chelsea began with a £250million reserve forward line made up of full internationals.

Four goals against Southampton last week could only be taken as so much of a signal that Chelsea’s recent creative woes had ceased and for 45 minutes here they looked as deeply embedded as ever. By half-time, 420 passes had not led to a single shot on target. Indeed, if Copenhagen is famed for its multi-coloured houses then Chelsea’s attacking performance to that point bore all the vibrancy of a brutalist tower block.

No wonder, then, that presented with an opportunity moments after half-time, James saw reason to let fly. His precise effort squeezed into the bottom corner, before Fernandez took his goal in clinical style.

Had Copenhagen managed to level late on, after Gabriel Pereira’s header had halved the lead, you could perhaps dress the tie with some jeopardy at the midway stage. That, though, was beyond them - and so surely will be turning it around now.

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Enzo Maresca

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