Following a late morning training session at Cobham, the 21-man Blues squad flew out to Germany and will be looking to maintain our 100 per cent record in the league phase of the competition.

Gent, Panathinaikos and Noah have been defeated thus far and Maresca does not want complacency to undermine his side's performance against the Bundesliga club.

‘I enjoy every game in this competition knowing that every club tries to make it their big game,' the Blues head coach said. 'The issue for us can be that if we are not ready mentally and we underestimate a team, they can hurt us. So we need to be ready.

Maresca added: ‘It’s an important competition, a European competition. Since we started, we have tried to share minutes with all the players in the squad. In some of the [Conference League] games, we have also used some young players. So we’ll see. In this moment, it’s like this, and hopefully we can continue in this way.’

With an intense December fixture list to begin on Sunday with Aston Villa's visit to Stamford Bridge, a number of players have not travelled with the squad.

Yet Maresca provided a positive update on Malo Gusto and Pedro Neto, both of whom were absent for the victory over Leicester City on Saturday.

‘Both have trained with us,' he said. 'We don’t take any risks for tomorrow’s game but I think both should be available for Sunday’s game [against Aston Villa].’