Chastened Chelsea in need of morale boost

The Europa League might not be top of Chelsea's priorities this season, but in the current circumstances Thursday's last 32, first leg away to Malmo in Sweden takes on extra importance for Maurizio Sarri's side.

The Italian's days in charge at Stamford Bridge could be numbered after Sunday's humiliating 0-6 defeat at Manchester City, their heaviest loss in 28 years and also their fourth consecutive away defeat.

But Sarri is still there for now as the London club continue a gruelling run of fixtures -- the two legs of the tie against Malmo come either side of the FA Cup fifth round clash with Manchester United. Another meeting with City in the League Cup final follows.

"It's difficult to accept such a heavy defeat, but we have a lot of matches coming up to lift our heads and give us hope for good results at the end of this season," France midfielder N'Golo said.

Chelsea breezed through their group despite Sarri regularly leaving out his leading players, and he is likely to rotate again in Sweden.

With this being the close season in Sweden, Malmo -- coached by the German former Manchester City striker Uwe Roesler -- have not played a competitive game since the end of the group stage in December.

For Chelsea and their London rivals Arsenal, the resurgence of Manchester United in recent weeks increases the need to keep going in the Europa League -- a victory in the final in Baku in May could still be their best hope of making it to next season's Champions League.

Unai Emery's Arsenal are in Belarus to play BATE, another club who have not played competitive football since the group stage ended.

A club who have won the last 13 national titles, but lost home and away to Chelsea in the group phase, should not be a match for the Premier League side over two legs in a tie that will see Alexander Hleb come up against his old side.

Now 37, Hleb is back at BATE for another spell. He spent three years at Arsenal before joining Barcelona in 2008.

Fixtures: Galatasaray vs Benfica; BATE vs Arsenal; Lazio vs Sevilla; Olympiakos vs Dynamo Kiev; Rennes vs Real Betis; Krasnodar vs Bayer Leverkusen; Slavia Prague vs Genk; Rapid Vienna vs Inter; Sporting vs Villarreal; Celtic vs Valencia; Shakhtar Donetsk vs Eintracht Frankfurt; Malmo vs Chelsea; FC Zurich vs Napoli; Club Brugge vs RB Salzburg; Viktoria Plzen vs Dinamo Zagreb.