Drogba set to miss out on Chelsea´s Moscow return

Chelsea return to the scene of one of the most bitter defeats in their history on Tuesday when they take on Spartak Moscow at the Luzhniki stadium.

It was here in the Russian capital that the reigning English champions missed out on the 2008 Champions League title 6-5 on penalties to Manchester United after a 1-1 draw in extra time.

Carlo Ancelotti has all but ruled out Didier Drogba for this Group F run out, the Ivory Coast striker suffering a fever which sidelined him for Saturday’s 0-0 draw with Aston Villa.

“I don’t think he will be able to play on Tuesday because he hasn’t trained this week, and he needs to train,” said the Italian, who is also having to make do without Frank Lampard (recovering from a hernia-operation).

“He (Drogba) will be here at Cobham. He’ll have to recover from the illness. We can cope because we will have a fit Salomon Kalou over there.”

Chelsea, like Spartak, are on a maximum six points from their first two group games, with Drogba suspended for both matches – a 4-1 victory over MSK Zilina and a 2-0 home win over Marseille.

Kalou is back after recovering from a thigh problem.

This is Chelsea’s first ever meeting with Spartak but they have fond memories of their last confrontation with a Russian side when they beat CSKA Moscow 2-0 at home and 1-0 away six years ago.

Nine-time Russian champions Spartak also have a positive record against English clubs, winning nine and losing four of their 15 meetings.

The Moscow outfit are going into their Chelsea showdown on the back of a confident 3-0 home win over 1995 Russian champions Alania Vladikavkaz on Friday.

Brazilians Ari and Alex scored one apiece for Spartak in the first half, while the visitors’ Bulgarian defender Ivan Ivanov rounded off the scoring sending the ball into his own net eight minutes after the interval.

Spartak manager Valery Karpin said he was pleased that his team kept a clean sheet but lamented his men wasted too many scoring chances in the match with Vladikavkaz.

“We played well in defence, managed to keep our net clean, it’s very good,” Karpin said.

“But I’m upset that we missed too many scoring chances. We should have scored at least two more goals. Such a waste of chances in the match with Chelsea is absolutely inadmissible.”

On Tuesday Spartak will still be without their midfielder Kirill Kombarov, who has failed to recover from injury.

Moscow side skipper Alex may also miss the Group F top-of-the-table clash after suffering a hip injury in the match with Vladikavkaz.