Blues Bulletin: Zenit St Petersburg vs Chelsea

With the Blues having made our furthest journey in this season’s Champions League tie, we continue the build-up to the encounter with the full rundown of the match’s facts and figures…

Chelsea vs Zenit head to head

Zenit’s biggest home win in the Champions League29/09/2021 - Zenit 4-0 Malmo - group stage

Chelsea’s biggest away win in the Champions League20/10/1999 - Galatasaray 0-5 Chelsea - first group stage25/11/2014 Schalke 0-5 Chelsea - group stage

Chelsea stats

Our only defeat in Russia was at Rubin Kazan in the quarter-final of the Europa League in 2013 but we still progressed 5-4 on aggregate.Chelsea have the best defensive record after five matchdays across all eight groups with just one goal conceded – Federico Chiesa's winner for Juventus in Turin.Chelsea have won our last three games in the Champions League without conceding a goal. The only English team to win four consecutive games in the competition while keeping a clean sheet on each occasion is Manchester United, who did so in 2003/04 and 2010/11 under Sir Alex Ferguson.No team has had more different goalscorers (excluding own goals) in the Champions League this season than Chelsea (nine): Jorginho 2 (2 pens), Chalobah 1, Christensen 1, Havertz 1, Hudson-Odoi 1, James 1, Lukaku 1, Werner 1, Ziyech 1Excluding own-goals, Chelsea have had 14 different goal scorers in the Champions League under Thomas Tuchel; the most of any team in the competition since his first game in February 2021. The Blues’ top scorers in this period have scored two goals each (Havertz, Mount, Werner, Ziyech and Jorginho).

Chelsea have kept more clean sheets (13) than any other side in the Champions League since the start of last season, conceding just five goals from 18 games in the competition during this period.The Blues have lost two of our last 19 away European games (13 wins, four draws).Chelsea need two goals to reach a half-century this season in all competitions.

Milestones

Zenit stats

Zenit are hoping for a third successive home win in European competition against an English side. The previous ones were 1-0 v Bradford City in the Intertoto Cup in July 2000 and 2-0 v Liverpool in the Europa League in February 2013.Zenit have recorded three victories in their last 20 Champions League games although the 4-0 win at home to Malmo on Matchday 2 was their biggest in the competition.Including qualifiers, this will be Zenit St Peterburg’s 200th game in European competition. They will become only the second Russian team to reach this landmark across all European competitions, after Spartak Moscow (277).

Zenit drew 2-2 with 11th placed Rostov at home on Friday, keeping them top of the Russian Premier League with 37 points from their 17 games.Head coach Sergei Semak had never faced Chelsea before from the dugout prior to this season although he played against us for CSKA Moscow in both of our Champions League group games in 2004.

Zenit's Matchday Five line-up

Tuesday 23 NovemberMalmo 1 Zenit St Petersburg 1Team (3-4-2-1): Kerzhakov; Lovren (c) (Erokhin h/t), Chistyakov, Ratitskiy; Karavaev, Barrios, Wendel, Santos; Malcom (Krugovoy 90+3), Claudinho (Mostovoy h/t); DzyubaBooked Claudinho, WendelSent off Chistyakov 86 (two yellow cards)

Discipline

Zenit’s Dmitriy Chistyakov is suspended for his red card on Matchday 5.

In the Champions League, three yellow cards will result in a one-match-suspension in the competition.