The Blues had some time to recover following the weekend's 2-1 Premier League win at Leicester City, but were back out on the training pitch today as preparations began for our trip to Heidenheim in Germany for our fourth league stage match in this season's UEFA Conference League on Thursday.

With three wins out of three in the competition, and an impressive 16 goals scored, Maresca and his team will be keen to continue that excellent form, but this time face another side with a 100 per cent record in the Conference League so far.

Levi Colwill was involved in training ahead of that game, having played the full 90 minutes at Leicester despite suffering from illness in the build-up.

There was also the welcome sight of Cole Palmer and Joao Felix out on the pitch with their team-mates and seemingly unscathed, although England international Palmer is not part of our Conference League roster so will not be involved on Thursday evening.

If previous European fixtures are anything to go by, Palmer's absence is likely to be one of many changes to the starting XI at Heidenheim, with a Premier League fixture against Aston Villa three days later, but Marc Cucurella stressed the team spirit allows players to slot in and out seamlessly from game to game.

‘The manager always decides who is in the team for the best way to plan the game, it doesn’t matter who plays,' said the Spanish international.

'I know it’s difficult, I stayed two games on the bench before Arsenal, but this is part of the game. We know we have a lot of games, all the players believe we are important. Maybe now I play, and then we have some weeks I don’t play, but we are a team.

'We know what we need to do and our responsibility. Sometimes you can start on the pitch and sometimes you need to start on the bench, but we are a team, we know what our objectives are and we need to keep going and pushing, because if we push we have the talent.'