Chelsea will wrap up their Champions League group campaign with a trip to Russia and an away game with Zenit on Wednesday night, still needing a result to confirm their status as group winners. The Blues have to match in St Petersburg the result which Juventus earn at home to Malmo to ensure they stay top and ahead of the Italian side on head-to-head, thereby giving Thomas Tuchel’s side seeded status in the last 16.
At Stamford Bridge earlier in the season, a second-half Romelu Lukaku goal earned a 1-0 win for the Premier League outfit; they had recently been on a tremendous run of 10 wins from 12 matches, but defeat to West Ham at the weekend means it’s also only one win from the last three in all competitions. Tuchel will be looking to get back to winning ways and says his team can do so without N’Golo Kante: “He is the Superman, he is the guy who makes the difference, the guy everybody in the whole world wants to have in their midfield,” the manager said. “And we miss him, for a long time. Can we produce results and top performances without N’Golo? Yeah we can, and we’ve proved it already.”
Zenit are already guaranteed to finish third in Group H regardless of tonight’s result. Follow Zenit vs Chelsea updates below:
