Group B
Kick-off: 19:45 (BST)
Valencia come into this ecnounter on the back of five successive wins, while Chelsea are in the midts of a slump with no victory and no goals in four Premier League outings.
Moreover, with José Mourinho having left the club and reports of dressing room friction under new coach Avram Grant, the English club look there for the taking tonight. Yet Valencia coach Quique Sánchez Flores does not believe the departure of Mourinho helps his side in any way.
“The Chelsea players are the same even though the manager has changed,” he said. “We don’t see this as a positive for us. It’s not the trainer we are playing, it’s the team, and we can’t contemplate the consequences of that [the managerial change] at the moment.
“We have to face the fact Chelsea really want to win the Champions League and have wanted to win it for some time. But I have a good feeling about the game. It will be a big crowd and we want to take good things out if it.”
Valencia, who opened their Champions League campaign with a 1-0 win at Schalke, may leave out Santiago Cañizares, who is fit after a muscle tear but may have to settle for a place on the bench behind stand-in keeper Timo Hildebrand.
Chelsea will seek medical advice before deciding whether to play John Terry after he underwent surgery on a fractured cheekbone on Sunday.
Grant said of his captain, who would take to the field in a mask: “He wants to play, which is good for us.”
Chelsea are still without the injured Frank Lampard but Didier Drogba will returns after missing the 1-1 draw with Rosenborg on Matchday 1.
“We lost two points at home in the first match, against what is on paper the weakest team in the group, so we need a good result if we want to continue in the Champions League,” he said.
