Callum Hudson-Odoi delivers a jolt amongst the tedium of the Europa League group stage

Maurizio Sarri may be frustrated with Chelsea’s relentless schedule but the Europa League has had its benefits, evinced by the opportunity Hudson-Odoi grabbed against PAOK

Callum Hudson-Odoi celebrates his first ever goal for Chelsea (Getty Images)

It is tempting to dismiss the Europa League group stage as a nuisance that Maurizio Sarri could have done without. It can be a tiresome venture for players and fans alike, and it can seem like a pointless exercise: Chelsea have five wins from five against various offerings from Hungary, Greece and Belarus, and a routine 4-0 victory here at Stamford Bridge against the 10 men of PAOK secured top spot with a game to spare.

Playing the Thursday-Sunday rota, Sarri has openly complained about the lack of time he’s been afforded in these opening months to embed his ideas. His comments this week about N’Golo Kante said as much, and he showed it on the touchline here, agitatedly directing his players and turning to his bench to bemoan every heavy touch, or misplaced pass, or the enigma of Ross Barkley, gesticulating to a startled Gianfranco Zola on the bench in the same way Pep Guardiola’s rollickings seem to waft in the general direction of a stony-faced Mikel Arteta.

But surely the pros of these nights outweigh the cons. For starters, they have not always been the routine victories you might expect, and even the visitors here took some breaking down in the first half before the game opened up.

Most valuable has been the opportunity for Sarri to test his understudies. Cesc Fabregas has fired in fits and starts through the group stage, and here in particular he just had fun. He played a delightful little chip to set up Olivier Giroud’s second goal and consistently showed one thing that Jorginho has been reluctant to: the raking Hail Mary from quarter-back to a winger’s infield run, a ball which would have its own assist column in the Chelsea programme if it wasn’t for some wasteful play on the other end of it.

Then there’s Loftus-Cheek, who enjoyed his best night in a Chelsea shirt a couple of weeks ago when his hat-trick turned over Bate Borisov; and Giroud, whose goals here can only give him confidence, something in worryingly short supply in Chelsea’s attacking unit; and Gary Cahill, who would barely have played a minute all season but for the chance to focus all his energies on Group L of the Europa League.

And here the most noticeable beneficiary was the teenager tearing down the left wing, Callum Hudson-Odoi. On his first ever start in professional football, the 18-year-old brought exactly the kind of confidence and swagger which he showed to light up Chelsea’s pre-season. At one point in the first half he received the ball 25 yards from goal, shifted it out of his feet and curled an effortless shot on to the crossbar.

Hudson-Odoi celebrates with his team-mates (Reuters) (REUTERS)

Hudson-Odoi carries himself with the air of someone who’s been doing this all his life, and in some ways he has; playing football as a tricky winger is much the same at any level, it’s just the higher up you go the more the defender you terrorise gets stronger, quicker, a little more streetwise. But the ball on his toe remains the same, and the colour of his shirt is the same blue he’s worn since he joined Chelsea as a seven-year-old boy.

And on the hour he got his reward. Should a typical Hudson-Odoi goal ever emerge, perhaps it will be this one, cutting inside from the left on to his right foot and giving the goalkeeper the eyes, shaping to curl in the far corner before snapping his foot back to find the slightest gap inside the near post.

Soon after he was joined on the Stamford Bridge pitch by substitute Ethan Ampadu, another talented youngster full of hope, starting a journey of unknowns with no idea whether he might forge a career at Chelsea or be forced to look elsewhere like so many before him. This was at least a night when they got a taste of the professional game which they might not otherwise have had were Chelsea in the Champions League or not in Europe at all.

Perhaps they are small Easter eggs buried in the mire of the Europa League’s onerous early rounds, but you sense even Sarri, huffing on the touchline, wouldn’t trade them away.