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Following CSKA's defeat of Beşiktaş on 30 September they dropped their home assignment against Manchester United at Luzhniki Stadium via a late strike Antonio Valencia.
As the result the Army-Men rest only a point behind VfL Wolfsburg in second place of Group B and know that favourable result in Manchester would catapult their chances of moving to the next stage of the tournament.
For the match Leonid Slutsky will be without the services of Mark González, Guilherme and Sekou Oliseh whilst the big news of the day is that Wayne Rooney is likely absent from Sir Alex Ferguson's already injury riddled line-up due to the birth of his son.
Though a late decision is expected on his striker the legendary Scottish manager has to deal not only with a crucial match against Chelsea on the weekend that will surely loom large in his tactical choices but the losses of Dimitar Berbatov, Rio Ferdinand, Ryan Giggs, Park Ji-Sung and Serbian international Nemanja Vidić with further doubts on Darren Fletcher.
With this in-mind Manchester United is most likely to pass striking duties to veteran Michael Owen who has been working diligently since making the move from Newcastle this past summer.
While much of the media attention has been pointed to CSKA 'keeper Igor Akinfeev, a reputed target on Man Utd transfer wish list, winger Miloš Krasić has quickly thrust himself to centre-stage with a string of top shelf performances.
Leonid Slutsky has a difficult tactical choice between Daniel Carvalho and the more defensively minded Evgeniy Aldonin. In Friday's victory over Terek Grozny the Brazilian play-maker's work rate was sluggish, lacked a attacking presence and could find himself out of a more defensively minded line-up.
The question remains to kickoff on how CSKA will approach the match against an injury riddled Manchester United line-up but it is surely one of the better chances to grab points at Old Trafford.
Prepared by John Davies
