Group D Kick-off: 19-45 (BST)
Chelsea have already beaten Porto and APOEL in Group D and a third victory, against Atletico Madrid on Wednesday, would move them to the verge of the knockout rounds.
Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti however, is worried about their defending from set-pieces after twice conceding from corners in Saturday’s defeat at Aston Villa. The Italian must also consider the twin threat of Sergio Aguero and Diego Forlan for Atletico.
“We have worked on this particular situation [set-pieces],” he said. “It is difficult to train for set-plays, it’s like the difficulty in training for a penalty, because the situation changes. It’s different, but we work and we have to improve. You can play a good match, like against Aston Villa, but if you don’t pay attention for six seconds at a set-play you can get a bad result.
“We played well and on Wednesday we have to continue to do that and win. We want first place in the group and have a great opportunity of achieving it. We can play better in the Champions League but at the moment it is important to win, because we want to play our best in March and April when the matches are very important.
“[Atlético] haven’t done well this season but they have excellent quality. Aguero and Forlan are dangerous forwards – we have to pay attention because Aguero has fantastic quality and can settle a match.
Meanwhile, Atletico coach Abel Resino, admits that his side need to start creating chances for their highly-touted strike partnership.
“It’s a big motivation to play against a team like Chelsea,” he said. “We all know we’re in a bad situation and we really need to turn it round. It reminds me of the time we lost to Santander and then managed to turn things around.
“It’s easy to talk negatively but it’s all about trying to turn this situation around. We’re being punished too much for the way we are playing. We only need two results for the team to relax and start playing football, and that’s what we’re trying to get.
“We can win, there’s a possibility of us doing that. We’re in bad shape but we’re working hard. Our problem has been that our strikers are not getting the chance to put the ball in the net.
“We’ve shown in two games – one in Greece [against Panathiniakos FC in the play-offs], the other in Spain [against APOEL] – that we can beat anyone on our day.”
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