Rafael Benitez sees danger lurking in Moscow as Ryan Bertrand is ruled out

 
Nathan Ake of Chelsea
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Simon Johnson10 April 2013

Rafael Benitez has warned his Chelsea players not to take their place in the Europa League semi-finals for granted.

Chelsea face Rubin Kazan in Moscow tomorrow night boasting a 3-1 lead from the first leg but have problems at left-back after Ryan Bertrand pulled out of the match due to an illness.

The game comes just three days before an FA Cup semi-final against Manchester City and Benitez is worried some of the players may not give their all against Rubin in order to save themselves for Sunday.

As usual, the interim manager is considering a number of changes to help his squad cope with the intense fixture schedule but he anticipates a battle in Russia.

He said: “The difficult thing is everyone thinks it’s done — it’s not done. We will be playing on an artificial pitch and it will be -5°C or something like that.

“If they score one goal, they will have hope and we will be under pressure. It is important for us to score and for us to approach the game with the right mentality.

“This game is going to have only 10,000 people there (due to the match being played in Moscow rather than Kazan) which is quite strange and dangerous for us.”

Bertrand was ruled out of the tie today, leaving Benitez with a tough decision to make as first-choice left-back Ashley Cole is already sidelined by an ankle problem.

Therefore, Benitez will have to choose between promising 18-year-old Nathan Ake, who has started just one game for the senior side, or 34-year-old Paulo Ferreira, who has started just six games in the past two seasons. Chelsea will also be without Gary Cahill, who has a knee injury, while striker Demba Ba is cup-tied.

Benitez is thinking of changing his preferred 4-2-3-1 formation to cope with their opponents.

“We are considering everything,” he added on Chelsea TV. “We analyse the physical data after every game and Rubin Kazan have a left winger [Bibras Natkho] who can play very fast, so you must pick a player that can be fast, too.

“I think we can play a good team but 3-1 is not the same as if it was 0-0 and you have to score your goals. We will try to manage it and we’re even thinking of changing the system if necessary and to put fresh legs on the pitch, to maybe stronger.

“That doesn’t mean we will be more defensive, just stronger because they have Roman Eremenko, who is good between the lines, plus Pablo Orbaiz and Natkho, who are key players for them. We will try to control them a little bit more.”

Meanwhile, Petr Cech is braced for a roller-coaster end to the season as Chelsea chase two trophies and fight to finish in the top four.

The goalkeeper was part of the Chelsea team who salvaged what looked to be a poor campaign last year by winning the FA Cup and Champions League and knows this season is also in the balance.

He said: “In football, everything can go really fast. You can go from complete disaster to a stage where you think the season will be brilliant — but then it ends up being a disaster.

“Or, it can start looking like a disaster and then everything reverses and it ends up being a great season.

“Look at last year — everything looked like a disaster and in the end, it was the most memorable season because we won the FA Cup again and the Champions League. We can still add two trophies into the cabinet if we do well so we need to go for it.”

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