Chelsea players must back up Enzo Maresca's Champions League claim and deliver against Manchester United | OneFootball

Chelsea boss says his players deserve Champions League football and they must now prove that in defining two matches

For Enzo Maresca and Chelsea, however, missing out has become quite literally unthinkable.

After a complex season, one of false title challenges and mid-winter slumps, demoralising cup exits and cakewalk cup runs, of a top-four ambition that gradually swelled to five, suddenly the equation for Chelsea looks simple. Win two matches, against United tonight and away to Nottingham Forest on the final day, and they will be back among Europe’s elite.

Beyond his own personal ambitions, Maresca is adamant that that is where Chelsea belongs, not merely as a club that has won the competition twice in the last 13 years, but also for the calibre of individual players wearing the shirt now.

“I don’t think Cole Palmer is the only one in terms of players who deserve [Champions League football],” Maresca said, having been asked about the Englishman. “Moises [Caicedo] also is a player that deserves Champions League. Enzo Fernandez deserves Champions League. Levi Colwill deserves Champions League.

Enzo Maresca is adamant his players deserve Champions League

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“We have many players that, in terms of status, deserve to play Champions League.”

This, though, is the stage of the season where they must step up and prove it, with in-form Aston Villa breathing down Chelsea necks and benefitting from the almost eerie gift of playing both Europa League finalists either side of their showpiece, hosting Tottenham tonight and then going to Old Trafford next weekend. It is difficult to think of a more nailed-on six points. Forest, too, are still in contention; win at West Ham on Sunday and their meeting with Chelsea next Sunday could yet end up winner-takes-all.

“There are some games like the one or two we have now,” Maresca said, “where the tactics are important, but it’s also important that players take responsibility and also to show desire to bring this club where this club has to be.”

It does feel as if tonight’s game, in particular, ought to be more about application than configuration for Chelsea, against a United side who phoned it in on their league campaign months ago. Amorim’s men are winless in seven matches over the last two months and have only beaten the three relegated teams in the last five.

And yet, there is a puzzle for Maresca to solve, with Nicolas Jackson’s red card at Newcastle last weekend depriving Chelsea of their one fit, senior centre-forward.

Nicolas Jackson’s suspension has left Chelsea short in attack

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The most straightforward solution appears to be to bump half of the team one slot up the pitch: bringing Reece James in at right-back, moving Caicedo into midfield and Fernandez to No10, then Palmer to the right of attack and Pedro Neto to No9.

Palmer, though, has started on the right only twice in the league this season and Chelsea lost both games, at home to Man City on the opening day of the season and then away to Villa earlier this year.

Maresca has touted the 23-year-old as a false-nine in the past and perhaps he has half-a-mind to trial that option, keeping Neto on the flank, though Amorim’s wing-back system appears to be giving his counterpart pause for thought.

“Against a line of five I prefer a real No9 because you need to attack in behind in the threat,” Maresca explained. “Unfortunately we don't have, so we need to find a different solution.” Neto is not a natural centre-forward, but is a more direct, pacy attacker than Palmer and at least has experience of playing there this term.

The left field option would be Tyrique George, the 19-year-old academy graduate who started up-front in each leg of the recent Conference League semi-final against Djurgarden.

This, though, even against an historically bad United, is a game of far greater consequence, one that demands Chelsea’s Champions League-level talent show themselves worthy of that stage.