Following on from his accusations of unfairness, Avram Grant, the Chelsea first-team coach, has turned his sights on Sir Alex Ferguson, branding the Manchester United manager's contribution to the fixtures furore “a joke”. With arguably the biggest match of his career, the Champions League quarter-final first leg against Fenerbahçe, taking place this evening, it demonstrates that Grant is reserving some of his energies for the pantomime that is life in the Barclays Premier League.

Grant's criticisms were measured, but others at Chelsea were less restrained, privately accusing Ferguson of hypocrisy. The Scot had told Grant to stop complaining about the fact that Chelsea must play league matches against Wigan Athletic and Everton in the space of four days this month, provocatively claiming that being given a more difficult fixture list did not prevent United winning the league last season.

Grant responded by treating the affair as an elaborate April fool, but no one at Chelsea is laughing at the fact that they must travel to Merseyside on a Thursday night while United put their feet up. “What day is it today?” Grant said yesterday in response to Ferguson's comments. “This must be a joke. I like Alex, but ... ”

Such managerial mind games are new to Grant, who will tonight encounter opponents worthy of being treated with his favourite word, respect. Fenerbahçe have beaten Anderlecht, PSV Eindhoven and Inter Milan - all champions of their respective national leagues - at their Sükrü Saracoglu Stadium, as well as eliminating Seville, the Uefa Cup holders, on penalties in the previous round, so they should not be underestimated.

Grant knows as much from personal experience as his Maccabi Tel Aviv side were eliminated in the qualifying rounds by the Turkish champions in one of his few previous experiences of the Champions League 12 years ago.

“Fenerbahçe are a good team who score a lot of goals,” Grant said. “I have seen all their games and it will be a difficult game. Our target is to succeed in the Champions League no matter the opponent.” With both domestic cups gone and United five points clear in the league, Grant has no margin for error if he is to salvage some silverware from the season.

With this in mind, the Israeli is considering a gamble by resting Didier Drogba in readiness for Saturday's visit to Manchester City, while Ashley Cole and Frank Lampard will definitely return after sitting out last weekend's win over Middlesbrough.

Nicolas Anelka will lead the line against his former club in Drogba's absence tonight, but the France forward is more consumed with memories of another erstwhile employer, Real Madrid, the club with whom he won the Champions League with eight years ago.

“Chelsea are like Real Madrid, it's a big club, a big squad with big players,” Anelka said. “It's always difficult, but I think we have the quality to win this title. I was happy with this draw because it's good to come back to Turkey, as the fans are great with a big ambience.

“We won the title in Fenerbahçe and when we went to the city centre on the bus, it took us four hours to travel 500 metres.”

While Chelsea will seek to keep things tight and finish the job in the second leg at Stamford Bridge next Tuesday, Fenerbahçe are pledging to attack from the start, as befits a side coached by Zico.

“My philosophy as a player and coach has not changed,” the former Brazil forward said. “The reality of football is to score goals and play clean, attacking and entertaining football. As we have shown before, our character is to go forward and score goals.”