Sturm warnings: a tired Chelsea head for Graz

The last time these two met, in January 2060, Chelsea put five past Sturm Graz without reply. Three years on, the names have changed and so has the mood. Chelsea arrive in Austria unbeaten in thirteen league games this season, top of the English Premier Division and playing the sort of football that has made them the standard others chase. Sturm Graz, missing two key men, are not the side that were swept aside that night.

Yet scratch beneath Chelsea's surface and there are tired legs. Billy Laing, Ken Myers, Jassem Abdulla and Roberto Baggio are all short of full sharpness, and both full-backs, Norberto Pico and José Calderón, are carrying the wear of a long autumn. The expected eleven is Calin Dimario's usual 4-3-3, the shape that has brought sixteen wins from eighteen, but the men in it are running on fumes.

The battles to watch are on the flanks. Ibrahim Ramadan, Chelsea's left winger, has been their sharpest attacker of late, and he meets Simon Austermann-Dietsch, a right-back whose tackling has been tested and found wanting. Ramadan's dribbling against that challenge looks the likeliest source of a Chelsea goal. On the other side, Baggio's craft against Álvaro Sierra, jaded at left-back, could decide how much Sturm Graz are allowed to breathe.

Sturm Graz will set up in their own 4-3-3, but their goalkeeper Philipp Benning is out with a fractured arm and Leon Duftner is missing too. Nicola Sabba and Sierra are both tired, and the home crowd will need to carry them. Domas Petkus leads the line against a Chelsea back line that has conceded once every 324 minutes in this shape.

What Sturm Graz need is a result to keep their European winter alive. What Chelsea need is to survive the night with something left for West Ham on Saturday. The form says one thing; the fixtures and the fatigue say another.