A squad of 22 players made the short flight across the Channel and arrived as darkness fell on the French capital. The Blues return to Paris for the first time since our quarter-final victory over PSG in 2019, where Maren Mjelde’s stoppage-time strike sent us through.

The Blues begin their group stage campaign at the Stade Jean-Bouin on Thursday evening and on arrival, Green took questions from the media, providing an update on the travelling party and those who have remained at home.

‘Everybody is available barring Melanie [Leupolz] who is obviously still on maternity leave,' said Green.

'This game has come too soon for Jelena Cankovic, she is still unavailable. Fran Kirby hasn’t recovered from her illness so she is also missing from the travelling party.’

With PSG, Real Madrid and Albanian side Vllaznia making up a tough group for Chelsea, Green says the team are relishing the challenges ahead and that a good result on Thursday can generate confidence going forward.

‘We’re really looking forward to the game. We fully respect PSG, they’re a very athletic team and one of the top teams in France. We’re really looking forward to that challenge of coming here, the first group game. I don’t think it really matters when you play the top teams, you’ve got to play them at some time in the competition.

‘We’re really embracing that challenge. We’re looking forward to it. We really think it will stand us in good stead if we can have a good result and build confidence tomorrow night for the remaining games, when we go to Vllaznia and Madrid later in the group.’

In our most recent win against Everton on Sunday, Green praised the professional and disciplined nature of the performance, explaining how the coaching staff are demanding more of the same against PSG on Thursday.

‘We’re a very experienced team. What I’m looking for really, along with Denise, is another professional performance, a disciplined performance. We’ve played here before, we’ve got quite a lot of players who have experienced the atmosphere in this stadium. We’ve got happy memories of this stadium from 2019.

‘We’re going to draw on that experience, we’re confident we can come here and get off to a good start, but at the same time we’ve got to be at our best. We’re up against another top team in Europe and it’s up to us to show what we’re about. We are the champions of England, we want to give a good account of ourselves in the first game tomorrow night.’

Having exited the competition at the group stages last season, Green expressed the squad’s determination to make amends this time around and the importance of playing at the highest standards if we are to reach the knockout phase.

‘I think it just shows the quality of the teams in the competition and how important it is to be at your best for every single game and that’s no different this year. We’re in another tough group but again we’ve embraced that and we know we’ve got to be at our best to achieve the points necessary to progress to the knockout stages.

‘We didn’t do that last year and we certainly want to go further in the competition. That’s the aim, to get out the group but we need to do the basics well and make sure we get the accumulation of points to make that necessary. Ultimately, we didn’t do that last year and it’s something we want to put right this year.’

As the team continue to adapt to the absence of manager Emma Hayes, Green says very little has changed and credited the players and staff for pulling together to navigate some challenging circumstances.

‘I think, as I previously said last week, the processes haven’t really changed. It just means that Emma’s not here, one cog in our wheel and everyone else is stepping up to cover in her absence. It’s very much been business as usual, just Denise has picked up Emma’s responsibilities and I’ve picked up some of Denise’s responsibilities.

‘It is very much something that we’re used to, so we don’t see it as a big difference. We miss Emma and she is making good progress. She’s getting better with every day. We’re happy to continue in this period, get through these matches and try to achieve the points we need to make sure we’re in a very good position when she comes back in, whenever that will be.’

Supporters can watch the match live on the DAZN YouTube channel on Thursday 20th October, with kick-off at 8pm (UK time)