Chelsea legend Pat Nevin has insisted that the Europa League is the perfect opportunity for fringe players in the Blues squad to try and impress Maurizio Sarri with their performances.

The Blues have been drawn alongside PAOK, BATE Borisov and debutants Vidi FC from Hungary in Group L of this year’s Europa League.




Sarri is expected to rotate his squad ahead of Thursday’s trip to Greece and it will likely mean that many of the fringe players who have not started for Chelsea in the Premier League could well be in contention for a place in the playing eleven.

Chelsea are under no pressure to force any changes on the side that have taken the Premier League by storm so far under Sarri, but they will surely have one eye on the trip to West Ham for a derby on Sunday as they prepare to face PAOK.
 


Nevin insisted that the fringe players in the Chelsea first team squad should look at the Europa League campaign as the ideal platform to impress their new manager with the games coming thick and fast from now on.

“It will also be a welcome chance of a start for many players who understandably can’t get near the team just now”, Nevin wrote in his column for the club’s official website.

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“Gary Cahill, Andreas Christensen, Ross Barkley, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Emerson Palmieri, Davide Zappacosta and others could be in the form of their lives right now, but it makes no odds, the current team is flying and there is no obvious need to change it.

“Ethan Ampadu like the others must be itching for a game so this is surely a chance to get most, if not all of them some serious competitive football.

“It is in no way devaluing the competition if we make those changes because the standard of the players who might come in are clearly top-level Premier League with absolutely no exceptions”, Nevin added.

Chelsea have won all of their games so far this season and are currently leading the pack in the Premier League ahead of Liverpool on goal difference.