Chelsea: Enzo Maresca needs senior players to step up for crucial games against Benfica and Liverpool | OneFootball

Blues have lost three of their last four games across all competitions

Your matchday briefing on Chelsea, featuring team news and expert analysis from Dom Smith

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Chelsea simply cannot afford to continue sleepwalking towards the October international break, and that means righting the wrongs of Saturday’s woeful defeat to Brighton with improved performances and results against Benfica on Tuesday and Liverpool on Saturday.

These are challenging fixtures at any point of any season, and even more so now that injuries and poor form have set in, Jose Mourinho is now pulling the reins at Benfica, and defending champions Liverpool, even after defeat at Crystal Palace, sit top of the Premier League.

Reece James, the Chelsea captain, is front and centre in that regard and was one of the only players to deliver an impressive performance at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.

After assisting Enzo Fernandez’s opener, he appeared to land awkwardly and, on another day, might have gone off. But he stayed on and was the only Chelsea defender who retained their focus and defensive discipline, even finishing the match filling in at centre-back.

On the opposite flank, the rampant churn of the Chelsea squad in the past few seasons and has quickly made Marc Cucurella one of its more senior players; his defensive harrying and offensive runs off the ball remain very important for how Maresca wishes his team to function.

Moises Caicedo will be expected to cover the vast amount of ground he manages to get through each and every game, and whether Enzo Fernandez again fills in as Cole Palmer’s understudy in No10 but drops back to partner Caicedo, Maresca will entrust the Argentine with unlocking the defence and adding to his four goal involvements already this season.

Enzo Fernandez has a big role to play for Chelsea this week

Action Images via Reuters

Chelsea must maintain a goal threat of their own. While their attack has fallen flat since the September international break, Benfica and Liverpool will rightly be wary of the mercurial Estevao, as well as two goal-scorers similarly adept at carrying the ball long distances into the final third: Pedro Neto and striker Joao Pedro.

Key will be their decision-making. If they pick the right options high up the pitch, they and the Blues will be hard to stop.

And at the other end of the pitch, despite conceding three late goals, Robert Sanchez’s return to the Chelsea team against Brighton brought an air of calm back to the back-line, a significant improvement after Filip Jorgensen’s ineffective and flappy showing at Lincoln last week. Sanchez, at 27, is one of Chelsea’s oldest players and must show leadership as well as keeping Benfica and Liverpool out.

The recruitment strategy of co-sporting directors Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley has left Chelsea an extremely youthful team, a risky policy some might say.

The flipside, however, is that they possess young players with immense top-level experience at such a young age. Caicedo, 23, Enzo, 24, James, 25, and others have far more than most other players their age. They are ‘world champions’ because of it.

Big challenge: Reece James and Moises Caicedo

Chelsea FC via Getty Images

If they can tap into the experience they now have in reserve from getting over the line and qualifying for the Champions League on the last day of last season and stunning Europe by lifting the Club World Cup trophy over the summer, they can have joy against a Benfica team struggling this season before Mourinho’s arrival and, on paper, underdogs against Chelsea, whoever is in their dugout.

Then comes the visit of Liverpool to Stamford Bridge on Saturday, an even more difficult test. But Chelsea should remember — and draw confidence from — turning Arne Slot’s side over 3-1 fewer than five months ago.