Chelsea have defended the state of the Stamford Bridge pitch and insist claims it will favour them against Barcelona next week are "nonsense".
The Blues face their biggest game of the season so far when the Spanish giants come to London in a reprise of a last-16 Champions League clash last season.
Barca defender Silvinho has criticised the playing surface but Chelsea's director of communications Simon Greenberg is adamant it will not give the Barclays Premiership champions an unfair edge.
Chelsea's director of communications Simon Greenberg
"The suggestion is that it gives us an advantage - well, both teams have got to play on it," he said. "The suggestion that we tend to play more long ball is nonsense, and the suggestion that football can't be played on it has been belied by our performance against Everton, for example.
"It's an obvious story, it was a story we knew would come in a month ago when we took the decision (not to relay the pitch) and we're basically laughing it off. The decisions were taken for genuine reasons and we'll have to see what happens."
Greenberg believes the enclosed nature of Stamford Bridge may have contributed to the problem, but claims Chelsea and all their opponents will benefit in the long run from the decision to wait until the end of the season before tackling the problem.
"There are other pitches out there that are not good and the general theme that those pitches have in common is that they are in stadiums which are completely surrounded - there's no flow-through of air or anything like that," Greenberg told Chelsea TV.
"That's not to say all pitches in enclosed stadiums are like that, but to pick out Chelsea's pitch as being particularly bad is unfair on our groundstaff, who work around the clock to get the pitch in the best condition possible.
"The reason it was left was for genuine long-term benefits, not only for our team but obviously for visiting teams who come here. If next year's pitch is a lot better then that's going to benefit the other team."
The pitch is set to come in for more wear and tear over the next week, with the Barcelona match next Wednesday and Colchester the visitors in the fifth round of the FA Cup on Sunday.
Striker Didier Drogba resumed training with Chelsea earlier this week after returning from African Nations Cup duty with the Ivory Coast, while Asier del Horno and Damien Duff are being put through their paces at the Cobham training ground again after overcoming a muscle injury and a thigh problem respectively.