Zenit St. Petersburg coach Luciano Spalletti has pledged to field his strongest team for a crucial league clash with rivals CSKA Moscow on Saturday, rather than keep players fresh for Zenit’s Champions League tie with Benfica three days later.
Zenit lead the Russian Premier League by six points from second-placed CSKA going into Saturday's clash, the first round of league matches after the three-month winter break.
They also lead Benfica 3-2 going into of the second leg of their first knockout round tie in Lisbon on Tuesday, the first time that Zenit has reached this stage of the competition.
“The best 11 players I have available will play against CSKA, because at this time, from where I’m standing, it’s the most important game for us,” Spalletti said on the Zenit website.
The team will return to St. Petersburg to rest after the CSKA game, rather than flying to Portugal immediately, he said.
“Constantly being in hotels makes the guys constantly tired.”
Andrei Arshavin, who rejoined Zenit on loan from Arsenal last week, is eligible for the CSKA match but cup-tied for the Benfica game.
Spalletti was coy over deploying Arshavin on Saturday.
He had praise, however, for Arshavin's performance in Russia's 2-0 friendly win at Denmark on Wednesday.
“Yesterday he played 90 minutes for the national side. His match fitness may not be perfect, but it’s definitely fine and good.”
Zenit brought in Arshavin to strengthen the team after Miguel Danny, who replaced Arshavin at Zenit, was ruled out for the rest of the season with a knee injury, he said.
“It happened that Danny got injured. And now we have a lot of matches ahead of us, we’re fighting for several titles, and the level of opposition is serious in each one of these tournaments, so we decided to find one strong player who would complement our team.”
