Anderlecht have boosted their chances of progressing to the last 16 of the Champions League with a narrow 1-0 victory over Zenit St Petersburg at home.

The first chance of the game fell to Dieudonne Mbokani just moments after the start, but he failed to take control of a loose ball.

Nicolas Lombaerts then almost caught Anderlecht goalkeeper Silvio Proto on the wrong foot, before Sergey Semak fired over the crossbar for Zenit.

Then on 17 minutes Mbokani put the Belgian giants in the lead when he linked up with Sacha Kljestan on the edge of the Zenit box before putting it over Vyacheslav Malafeev and into the goal.

That spurred on Anderlecht, as Milan Jovanovic tested Malafeev before Behrang Safari caused problems for the visitors' defence.

Axel Witsel could have restored parity for the Russian giants at the start of the second half, but saw his effort saved by Silvio Proto between the Anderlecht goal.

With 10 minutes left on the clock, the hosts almost scored their second goal of the evening in this Group C fixture when Oleksandr Yakovenko smashed a shot against the Zenit crossbar.