Zenit Saint Petersburg duo Sergei Semak and Dejan Lovren are adamant they will not underestimate Chelsea's 'quality' amid a recent slump in form for the European Champions.
In the Champions League, all things are rosy for Thomas Tuchel but their indifferent league form is causing concern for everyone associated to the club.
They come into the Zenit clash with low confidence and various different injury issues that have prompted Tuchel to admit that there will have to be some significant rotation on Wednesday night.
"Two games is not a problem but it's a huge difference. Like I said before if you play Saturday-Wednesday, or a home game and then a Saturday game, it changes the line-up as you can be sure everyone recovers," Tuchel explained in his pre-Zenit press conference on Tuesday afternoon.
"We have a long trip, sit on a bus, sit on a plane, there's a time difference, and we will arrive back early morning on Thursday, the line-up for Saturday is automatically effected.
"So this is the daily business and what we push for is more opportunities to rest players, to change in certain positions, and then it gets uncomfortable if you have three players out for too long. This is what we do and even if we are likely to have changes tomorrow, we will prepare to win the game and with a will to win the game.
"We will push forward and not let our mood be affected by circumstances that we can't control."
The repercussions of this game is not as big as it could have been if the west Londoners had they not beaten Juventus at home, but now the battle is for who will finish top of the group and seal the theoretically less daunting task in the next round.
Still, Tuchel, knowing the perfectionist he is, will demand an improvement for what he has seen from his side recently amid this mid-season wobble.
And both Semak and Lovren are expecting a reaction from a 'top' quality team that edged out their side in matchday one of the group stages.
The former of the pair said: "Chelsea are a top quality team and it’s hard to say in which areas they are strongest.
"You are talking about individual players, but their system in general is like a German, well-oiled, organised machine, every player knows their role and knows how to do it well. So I don’t want to talk about individuals, more the way they play as a team."
Lovren, who has a history of mixed fortunes against the side from SW6 from his Southampton and Liverpool days, isn't blind to the magnitude of the task ahead of his teammates in gameweek six of this season's Champions League.
"Chelsea are a top team and the philosophy of their manager is always to win, they won’t come here to sit back and wait," the 32-year-old insisted.
"They know what they want and they have a system they like to play. Injury-wise might be a plus to us, but if we defend well all together like we did in the game there, we’ll have our chances and should use them."
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