Dewsbury-Hall delivers as Chelsea triumph in six-goal thriller against Gent | European Conference League

With every result, Enzo Maresca makes Chelsea believe again. Even as his side cruised to their fifth straight win in all competitions against Gent, the Italian could be seen slinking down the touchline and giving instructions.

At a club where thinking is becoming increasingly muddled, Maresca’s straightforward approach appears to be paying off. Second-half goals from Pedro Neto, Christopher Nkunku and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall secured victory for the Belgian side after the impressive Renato Veiga opened the scoring.

But without the services of Cole Palmer after the four-goal hero was left out of the Conference League squad on Saturday, Chelsea showed they have plenty of other options and there will be no stopping them from making the first team will complete the full set of European trophies if they decide to take this competition seriously.

Despite making 11 changes since Saturday’s impressive win over Brighton here, Maresca has been able to name a forward line that cost Chelsea £200m to build. According to website TransferRoom, their squad is worth about the same as the other 35 clubs taking part in the Conference League this season, and they entered the group stage as clear favorites to reach the final in Wrocław.

Gent have taken part in every edition of this tournament since its inception by Uefa in 2021 and were beaten by West Ham in the round of 16 a year ago en route to winning the trophy. After finishing seventh in the Belgian league, Wouter Vrancken’s team fought through three qualifying rounds to get into this round and included two players with famous fathers in their starting eleven.

Eidur Gudjohnsen was in the stands to watch his son, 22-year-old striker Andri, take on his former club, while Noah Fadiga – the son of former Bolton and Senegal winger Khalilou Fadiga – tried to join him in attack support.

But with Neto and Mykhailo Mudryk in the mood to impress in the absence of Palmer and co, it didn’t take long for Chelsea to take the lead. Neto had already set up Tosin Adarabioyo for a header with a delicate cross shortly before, when Mudryk appeared on the same cross and delivered an inch-perfect ball to Veiga, who headed it into the goal at the back post.

Dewsbury-Hall should have doubled the lead when Neto moved away from his marker and fired the ball straight into the midfielder’s path, but he fired narrowly wide.

Gent’s first shot on goal came just after the half-hour mark when Archie Brown, a Derby academy prospect who plays for the England U20 team, parried Filip Jørgensen after a short break.

But their vociferous support couldn’t believe it when Gudjohnsen fired a powerful shot just inches over the goal, giving the Chelsea goalkeeper no chance. Maresca once had some good words for Mudryk when he gave the ball away cheaply. But the Ukrainian showed his skills when he passed Hugo Gambor just before half-time and it took difficult defending to keep Chelsea at bay.

Barely 30 seconds had passed since the restart when Neto took advantage of a moment of hesitation between Gambor and Watanabe to score Chelsea’s second goal after a long ball from captain Axel Disasi. But Gent hit back immediately when Japanese defender Benoît Badiashile towered and headed in Gudjohnsen’s cross to the delight of fans behind Jørgensen’s goal.

Chelsea were forced to attack again and Nkunku made Gent pay for failing to clear a corner as he fired home from the penalty area and the goal stood despite it appearing Veiga had been offside in advance .

Fadiga and Gudjohnsen were withdrawn straight after the goal and it took a block from Badiashile to prevent substitute Max Dean from scoring with his first touch of the ball. Dewsbury-Hall removed any doubts about the result when he capitalized on João Félix’s through ball to score Chelsea’s fourth goal.

To their credit, Gent continued to attack and a brilliant run from Brown saw the 22-year-old almost equalize in the closing stages before substitute Omri Gandelman scored a late goal, but it was of little use helped dampen the home crowd’s enthusiasm.