Two young Chelsea stars have played twice in just over 24 hours. Kiano Dyer and Shim Mheuka both came on during the Blues' 3-1 win over Astana on Thursday before playing for the Under-18s against Leicester City.

Enzo Maresca experimented with a youthful line-up during Chelsea's Europa Conference League fixture in Kazakhstan this week. The Blues played in freezing temperatures but recorded a comfortable victory, which secured their passage through to the last-16.

And two stars returned to action against Leicester in the FA Youth Cup less than 24 hours later. Dyer supplied a cross for Mheuka's goal which saw the U-18s complete a comeback from 2-0 down to win 3-2 against the Foxes.

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Both players were involved in Europe for the first-team squad who did not get back until 5am on Friday morning. Maresca stated his belief before the Astana game that it was "not normal" for a player to make the 16-hour round trip to Kazakhstan and then play on Sunday night (7pm) against west London rivals Brentford.

"Eight hours [one way] is not a normal time [to travel] for a game," said Maresca. "But we have to go there and we have to play and we want to try to do our best, thinking also about the next game.

"The ones that are not involved tomorrow, first of all, they're going to be training, and they have to train well. You never know whether we might need one of the guys who play tomorrow on Sunday."

He went on: "Ideally we prefer not. We are going to land at 6am on Friday and it's not normal for one of them, if they land at 6am on Friday, to play again on Sunday. But if we need [them to], they are going to make the effort."