£21m Chelsea player can seriously ramp up the pressure on his teammate with a big display vs Gent

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Chelsea host Gent on Thursday night in the Conference League, which feels like it could be a huge opportunity for several individuals to show their quality.

Chelsea kickstart the group stages of the Conference League later this week by hosting Belgian side Gent at Stamford Bridge.

The Blues squad is looking extremely strong this year and we’d anticipate wholesale changes to the starting team. In fact, Enzo Maresca made 11 changes last week when his side beat Barrow 5-0 in the Carabao Cup.

Speaking via talkSPORT last week, Jamie O’Hara waxed lyrical about the depth of Chelsea’s squad.

It’ll be interesting to see what kind of team takes to the field against Gent, but we already know the trio of Cole Palmer, Wesley Fofana and Romeo Lavia won’t be involved as they’ve been left out the Conference League squad to manage their workload.

• READ MORE: How to watch Chelsea vs Gent: The Blues’ first UEFA Conference League match since play-off win

Filip Jorgensen can pile pressure on Robert Sanchez

As it stands, Robert Sanchez has emerged as the clear number one goalkeeper at Chelsea. His understudy is Filip Jorgensen, who joined the club in a £21m deal (BBC) in the summer.

Jorgensen, 22, has come in to start cup competitions so far this season. Providing that trend continues on Thursday at home to Gent, we think the young shot-stopper has a great opportunity to apply some extra pressure on teammate Sanchez.

We’d love to see Jorgensen go out and turn in a really eye-catching display to get Maresca contemplating his number one situation.

So far, Jorgensen has been fairly quiet in his three appearances this campaign. He was pretty much a passenger last week versus Barrow, plus he did play in both play-off ties against Servette to help reach the Conference League.

The jury is still out on the young keeper because he’s not had many chances to impress yet on a matchday, but this Thursday feels like it could be great timing to make a case for himself to play more.

Question marks about Robert Sanchez

Sanchez has done well in patches at the start of this season and regained his starting position in-between the sticks, but his horror display on Saturday is fresh in everyone’s minds right now.

The 26-year-old goalkeeper made two silly errors against Brighton, with both of them leading to goals for the visitors at Stamford Bridge. Fortunately, Cole Palmer’s four-goal masterclass ensured Chelsea still won.

Many Chelsea fans want Sanchez dropped after his latest performance, so there’s certainly a pressure building from within the fanbase. Meanwhile, speaking via talkSPORT recently, Jamie O’Hara picked out Sanchez as a problem area for Chelsea.

It’s going to be interesting to see what happens in the goalkeeper spot long-term, but we think Jorgensen can throw his name into contention for Premier League minutes by impressing in Europe.