Krasnodar vs Chelsea LIVE: Result and reaction from Champions League fixture tonight
Follow all the latest from the Champions League as Chelsea aim to build on their opening draw with Sevilla
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Your support makes all the difference.Chelsea are in Russia to take on Krasnodar tonight as the Blues look to secure their first win of the group stage.
Frank Lampard was satisfied with a goalless draw against Sevilla, Chelsea’s main rivals in the group, but knows his side must get a victory against the Champions League newcomers here if they are to assert themselves in the competition.
Follow all the latest live updates below:
A final word from Frank Lampard before kick off in five minutes time:
"We have spoken a lot about it this week - that we haven't lost in these games. We are striving for more wins, we know that.
"We are looking for improvement but I have a lot of confidence in the team and everybody feels good. We approach the game with the same confidence as normal."
Krasnodar will play their first Champions League home match tonight. None of the previous 12 newcomers to the Champions League have won their first home match when facing English opposition.
They’ve drawn twice and lost 10 times.
The last team to win their first Champions League home match facing English opposition were VfB Stuttgart against Manchester United on 1 October, 2003.
Chelsea’s opponents tonight are FK Krasnodar, a relatively new side only founded in 2008.
The game is the club's first ever home Champions League group-stage match, and is a sellout within the Covid-19 restrictions allowed by the Russian authorities.
Russian billionaire Sergey Galitsky, founder of the supermarket chain Magnit, founded the club with a desire to build something of lasting benefit to his home region.
In a country that favours big state interests Krasnodar is one of only four privately owned clubs in the Russian top flight.
Galitsky hired Krasnodar-born and bred Murad Musayev to manage the side and a special relationship has developed between owner and manager.
"It's an honour to work with him but also a great responsibility," says Musayev. "He will argue with you on every point, make you fight for your opinion. He can speak about physical training, about set-pieces or specific passages during the match. He has a phenomenal understanding of football, as well as business."
Frank Lampard is only the second English manager to lead a side in two Champions League campaigns after Sir Bobby Robson.
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Chelsea’s last two clean sheets have come with Thiago Silva partnering Zouma at centre-back. With the Brazilian not involved tonight Antonio Rudiger is the man to line up next to the 26-year-old but he’s not worried about the change of personnel saying:
"We’ve got quality everywhere. Of course Thiago Silva has been doing good since he came, but also before he wasn’t here and we’d been doing good too. There’s nothing to prove, we just came here to win the game as a team, so there’s nothing to prove for us.
"We enjoy playing football. We all love playing for Chelsea, but obviously physically it is difficult because there is so many games and travelling and hotels, but that’s the job.
“That’s what we’re here for, to play football, to enjoy it. So we don’t think too much about it, we just enjoy the games and that can be good for everyone, because there’s so many games and everyone can play.”
Chelsea centre-back Kurt Zouma is happy with the Blues’ improvement in defence after they kept back-to-back clean sheets against Sevilla and Man Utd in their last two games. He said:
"Everyone’s been training hard, we played these two great opponents, but defensively we did a great job. I think in the last two games we’ve been doing great. I think the communication’s been better too.
"Also I think just the lads made a really big effort to keep the clean sheet and everyone, we’re all going the same way and we know each other better now. There’s a lot of new players that came in, and with the players that were here last season, the mix has to come quicker.
“We don’t have time to prepare a lot, we have a short time in training because there’s many, many games coming, but we will get there soon hopefully and we just need to enjoy ourselves.
“I don’t think we can talk about turning a corner defensively, we’ve just been doing our job. We’re trying to do the best that we can in every game and obviously in the last two games we did good, we had clean sheets, but that’s only two games so we just want to keep doing that and good things come with hard work. We just have to keep working hard to get there.”
With no victories in their last three matches Frank Lampard’s Chelsea are hoping to get back to winning ways against Russian side FK Krasnodar:
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Chelsea have failed to win in their last three games across all competitions. Their opening Champions League fixture finished 0-0 with last season’s Europa League champions Sevilla.
"People look at this group and think it is comfortable for us, but we have to have edge against Krasnodar," said Chelsea boss Frank Lampard.
"They are new into the Champions League so will have absolute motivation. We're very focused on the game."
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