LONDON : Chelsea’s noon (1100GMT) kickoff at Newcastle United in the Premier League on Sunday is not ideal after their midweek Conference League game but the team will adapt and prepare with Champions League places at stake, manager Enzo Maresca has said.
Chelsea beat Swedish side Djurgarden on Thursday to reach the Conference League final but will have fewer than 72 hours to turn their attention back to the Premier League top-five race when they travel to Tyneside.
Chelsea are fifth in the standings with 63 points and a goal difference of 21 – the same as Newcastle who are fourth having scored four more goals than the London side this season.
“It’s a 12 p.m. kickoff and we played on Thursday night, so it’s not the ideal situation … It’s first thing in the morning. But we need to play the game,” Maresca told reporters.
“So we need to adapt immediately, prepare for the game in the best way and hopefully we can continue our good moment.
“We have two days and the players need to be focused on the Newcastle game… For us, we have to think like it’s the last game of the season, give everything, and then we see at the end.”
With the top five teams guaranteed to qualify for the Champions League, the battle could go down to the final day of the season with sixth-placed Nottingham Forest (61 points) and Aston Villa (60) in seventh also in the mix.
Chelsea still have it their destiny in their own hands and Maresca said he was not looking at the various permutations with games against Manchester United and Forest to follow.
“It’s a big one, it’s a huge one (against Newcastle). (Manchester) United will be a big one, Forest will be a big one. Now we have three more games, all of them are going to be big games,” he said.
“We’re going to try to win the three games that we have. Now how many points (do) we need to finish in the top five? No idea, because it also depends on the other results.
“But we need to be focused on us and try to win the three games. Then if it’s two or one, we don’t know, but the focus is to try to win the three games we have.”
