Zenit St Petersburg vs Chelsea: Champions League team news, line-ups & predictions

Chelsea travel to Russia today as they take on Zenit St Petersburg.

Thomas Tuchel’s side will be looking for a win as they aim to secure the winners spot at the top of Group H, while second place Juventus face Malmo.

Chelsea currently sit on the same points as the Serie A giants, however goal difference is in their favour.

After an impressive victory over Juventus last time out Chelsea easily cruise through to the knockout stage of the competition, however are likely to need to take all three points this evening to go through at the top of the group.

The Blues’ previous meeting against Zenit saw them come out 1-0 winners at Stamford Bridge thanks to a second half goal from Romelu Lukaku but tonight’s match may be less of a challenge, with the Russians unable to qualify.

Tonight’s fixture will be only the third time Zenit have hosted an English team in Europe after earning victories against Bradford City in the 2000 Intertoto Cup and Liverpool in the 2012-13 Europa League.

Meanwhile, the London club have won each of their three away games against Russian opponents in the Champions League and could become the first English side since Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United in 2003-2004 and 2010-11 to win four consecutive games in the competition while keeping a clean sheet.

Team news

Chelsea have a number of injury worries going into tonight’s fixture.

The Premier League side will be without Ben Chilwell (ACL), Trevoh Chalobah (hamstring), N’Golo Kante (knee), Jorginho (hip) and Mateo kKovacic (coronavirus).

Meanwhile, Kai Havertz and Marcos Alnso were both forced off at the weekend in their defeat to West Ham with respective ankle and back problems.

For Zenit, Dmitri Chistyakov is suspended after picking up a red card in last month’s draw against Malmo.

Goakeeper Stanislav Kritsyuk is sidelined wtih a lengthy injury after undergoing knee surgery in November so Mikhail Kerzhakov is set to start between the sticks once again.

Zenit predicted line-up: Kerzhakov; Barrios, Lovren, Rakitskyi; Karavaev, Kuzyaev, Wendel, Santos; Malcom, Dzyuba, Claudinho

Chelsea predicted line-up: Mendy; Christensen, Silva, Rudiger; Azpilicueta, Loftus-Cheek, Saul, James; Mount, Ziyech, Lukaku

Predictions

Despite Chelsea’s unbeaten run coming to an end against West Ham last week, I don’t expect that to deter the Blues from their task at hand this evening.

Zenit will be hoping to shock the current Champions League holders, however they have a lot less to play for than Thomas Tuchel’s side.

Bar their injuries, Chelsea will have a strong line-up and so I expect a win for the visitors.

Prediction: Zenit 0-3 Chelsea