The three big positives from Chelsea’s record-breaking away trip | OneFootball

Chelsea have beaten Astana 3-1, making it 5 from 5 in the Conference League and securing (mathematically) and securing their progress to the knockout stage of the competition.

The win today rules out any prospect of a playoff stage, which is nice. But that’s not the only thing that made us happy from tonight’s 90 minutes.

Here are our picks for the 3 biggest positives from the win in Kazakhstan:

The return of Josh Acheampong

Josh coming back wasn’t just nice because we got to see him in action, but also because it means his contract dispute may be at an end.

Of course, as you’d expect, he was excellent. Given the situation with Reece James’ injuries, Josh may be in line for a lot more minutes to come before the end of the season.

Marc Guiu celebrates in Kazakhstan. (Photo by Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC)

A load of debuts

As well as Acheampong’s return, academy kids Shim Mheuka, Ato Ampah and Kiano Dyer all played their first minutes for Chelsea tonight.

There was even a first start for Sam Rak-Sakyi and a second for Tyrique George, plus a long awaited return to action in the first team for Harvey Vale.

That’s 7 Cobham products on the pitch at various points in the evening – you can’t ask for more than that from a game like this.

No injuries or issues (touch wood)

Let’s face it, nobody really wanted to make this trip – it’s literally as far as you can possible go for a European away game. It’s a huge unnecessary midweek strain, but what can you do? The important thing was just getting in and out without any injuries or incident, and barring a problem with the flight home, it looks like we’ve got away with it.

As for the fatigue it should only be the staff who are drained by the travel.