Chelsea travelled to Sweden for the first leg of our UEFA Conference League semi-final on Thursday evening, securing a 4-1 lead to take back to Stamford Bridge with us for next week’s decisive second game.

After Jadon Sancho and Noni Madueke had given us the lead in the first half, Jackson came off the bench to extend our advantage with a brace. Those could be important strikes too, with the semi-final having a very different feel going into the second leg with a three-goal advantage, compared to what could have been a narrow 2-1 lead.

Furthermore, after finding it difficult to get his name on the score sheet as regularly as he had in the first half of the season since returning from injury, Jackson made it three goals in the space of six days, having also got the winner in our 1-0 Premier League win over Everton on Saturday.

‘Nico scored against Everton and it’s all about confidence,’ explained Maresca after the victory in Stockholm. ‘You see now that he looks like a different player from weeks ago.

‘Hopefully the same thing is going to happen with Cole [Palmer]. It’s just a matter of breaking that moment and going again.

‘The game against Legia Warsaw at home we started with Nicolas and Cole from the beginning and both struggled. Now you can see Nico looks a different player, because he scored against Everton. Now he has the confidence again and we know how good Nico is for us.

‘It is the same thing with Cole and hopefully we can also have him scoring goals and getting assists very soon.’

Our head coach also had words for 16-year-old Reggie Walsh, who came on late on against Djurgarden to make his senior debut and become the third-youngest player ever to represent Chelsea, and the youngest full stop since 1967.

Walsh is also the eighth player from our Academy to make his debut under Maresca during the 2024/25 season – following Tyrique George, Samuel Rak-Sakyi, Ato Ampah, Shumaira Mheuka, Kiano Dyer, Harrison Murray-Campbell and Genesis Antwi – and the Italian suggested our latest debutant could have made his bow even earlier, despite his young age.

‘To be honest it’s already a long time that I have felt excited to give him his debut chance because he’s so good,’ added Enzo. ‘He’s very young but in the way we want to play, in our style, he’s perfect.

‘But he’s still very young, he needs to learn, he needs to work hard and he needs to grow for sure. But we are happy. We have given eight debuts this season from the Academy, I think it’s good.

‘My message to him was just to enjoy the moment, be happy, play the way he is training with us every day, because in some days this season he’s worked with us and he’s so good because he makes everything easy. But he’s still very young and he needs to continue to work.’

Westview tickets for the home leg of this UEFA Conference League semi-final are on sale for £60pp, available exclusively to CFC Members. Hospitality packages are available on general sale here, starting from £160pp.