Trabzon: Needing only a draw to advance, Inter Milan will be looking to get back into the last 16 of the Champions League on Tuesday when the club travels to Turkey to face Trabzonspor. Inter, which won the competition for the third time in 2010, lost to the Turkish club 1-0 in September.
Also in Group B, last-place Lille will take on CSKA Moscow. The French club has to win its last two games to advance, including a home match against Trabzonspor. Inter leads the group with nine points despite losing seven of its 15 matches in all competitions this season. CSKA and Trabzonspor are next with five points each, while Lille has two.
Inter's president Massimo Moratti is confident coach Claudio Ranieri can start to turn the season around following back-to-back wins.
"The squad is starting to tick, especially the new signings — and you can add Coutinho to that group because he's like a new acquisition who needs to prove himself," Moratti said.
Ranieri is without star player Wesley Sneijder, who has been diagnosed with a strained muscle in his right leg after getting injured during the pre-match warmup for a 2-1 win over Cagliari in Serie A on Saturday.
Coutinho replaced Sneijder against Cagliari and scored his first goal of the season to help Inter to just its third win in the Italian league. Defenders Lucio and Yuto Nagatomo have recovered from injuries and are back in Inter's squad.
CSKA, meanwhile, is also without its best player, with striker Seydou Doumbia suspended after being sent off in the 0-0 away draw against Trabzonspor on November 2.
Doumbia's two goals helped CSKA rally from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 away to Lille in September, and the Ivory Coast forward has scored nine goals in the last six games — including two hat tricks.
Coach Leonid Slutsky must hope Doumbia's red card doesn't prove costly.
"Clearly, Doumbia is our key striker this season, but we will have to try to play without him," Slutsky said. "It will be a tough game for both teams. Lille will have to be aggressive in attack."
CSKA will rely on Brazilian striker Vagner Love, who has scored 116 goals since he joined the team in 2004. Love was suspended for CSKA's last two matches in the Russian league.
Garcia needs his strikers to start scoring again, particularly Moussa Sow.
Sow was the French league's top scorer with 25 goals last season, but has not scored in his last four matches and missed a penalty in Friday's 0-0 draw at Toulouse.
"Moussa played well, he caused problems for their central defenders," Garcia said, defending his form.
Lille would have been in a far stronger position if it had defended better, because it also led away to Trabzonspor before drawing 1-1.
Garcia is not overly concerned over Lille's poor form, which has seen only two goals scored in four games.
"If we play like this in our next games, we will win them," he said. "We don't actually have a choice in Moscow. We don't know precisely what the weather conditions will be like but we're expecting it to be very cold, perhaps snowing."
Garcia hopes to have defender Marko Basa and midfielder Benoit Pedretti back from injury.
"The positive thing (about the draw with Toulouse) is that we didn't pick up any injuries, safe in the knowledge that we could rest certain players," Garcia said. "We'll see what shape Basa and Pedretti are in."
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