The striker, on loan from Juventus, came off with a back injury in Wednesday's 4-0 humiliation at Bournemouth – the Blues' worst result in 23 years.
Olivier Giroud could instead start up front as the lone forward.
Boss Maurizio Sarri said: "At the moment he [Higuain] is not at the top physically because in 45 days he played few matches because of his back and because of the [transfer] market.
"He needs to improve as he can generate more than now.
"If he can improve physically then he will be useful for us immediately."
Sarri, 60, is likely to field his strongest possible XI and avoid another embarrassment against the Premier League's basement boys.
Marcos Alonso could come back in for Emerson in the only other change to Wednesday's lineup.
It means fans' wishes of a Triple H front line of Eden Hazard, Higuain and Callum Hudson-Odoi look unlikely to come true.
While Jorginho is set to keep his place in the team as under-fire Sarri refuses to change his tactics.
The former Napoli boss has no plans to alter his favoured 4-3-3 formation with Jorginho as a central playmaker.
He pointed to the example of Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool, who had a challenging start at Anfield before leading a title challenge to Manchester City and Tottenham this season.
Sarri said: "The situation is very clear. English football is in the hands of these teams because they had a plan and they were patient.
"I want to remember that in the first season Klopp and Liverpool were in the middle of the table.
"I am a dreamer, I want to play my football."
Sarri refuses to compromise on his footballing principles – or even to have a contingency plan.
"Why? First of all, I want to do very well the plan A, I think.
"I don't want to change something that at the moment doesn't work very well. First of all, I want to see my football played very well, then we can go to change something.
"Everybody ten years ago knew very well Barcelona, but Barcelona won everything because Barcelona played very well their football.
"First of all, I want to play very well my football. Then I can change."
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