Preview: Shakhtar Donetsk vs. BATE Borisov

When these two sides met in the Borisov Arena a fortnight ago, it was certainly an evening to forget for those of a BATE Borisov persuasion.

The hosting Belarusians recorded an impressive 2-1 win over Athletic Bilbao in their previous home Champions League group encounter, but Shakhtar Donetsk returned to Ukraine as 7-0 winners.

That result has left BATE in third position with three points to their name, while Shakhtar are joint top on seven points along with Porto.

Ahead of the return meeting at the Lviv Arena, Luiz Adriano, who scored five of Shakhtar's seven goals, is expected once again to lead the attack.

Indeed, head coach Mircea Lucescu has been tipped to name an unchanged starting lineup, although defender Serhiy Kryvtsov is expected to miss out with an ankle problem.

As for visiting BATE, they will be without Belarus international Egor Filipenko because of a knee complaint, but aside from that, Alyaksandr Yermakovich has a full compliment of players to select from.

BATE go into this contest having recently extended their unbeaten run in the Vysshaya Liga to 28 matches.

Recent form

Shakhtar: DLWWWL

BATE: WWWLDW

Possible starting lineups

Shakhtar: Pyatov; Srna, Kucher, Shevchuk, Rakitskiy; Teixeira, Stepanenko, Costa, Fernando, Taison; Adriano

BATE: Chernik; Tubic, Khagush, Polyakov, Mladenovic; Likhtarovich, Gordeychuk, Karnitskiy, Volodko, Yablonski; Signevich

Sports Mole says: 3-0