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Welcome to another evening of thrilling Champions League football. Nine games are set for tonight, featuring three English clubs in action. Chelsea face Barcelona in the key fixture of the evening, while The Magpies travel to the French side and City welcome Bayer Leverkusen.

Current Standings

We're at the halfway stage of the group stage, so the rankings is beginning to form. All six English clubs are currently in the upper twelve, however there are only 2 pts separating fifth and sixteenth place, so there's a whiff of snakes and ladders about the whole thing. All remains open.

Tonight’s Fixtures

Here are this evening's games, each starting at 8:00 PM unless stated:

• Benfica lead Ajax 1-0 (5.45pm)
• Galatasaray 0-0 Union SG (17:45)
• Juventus face Bodo/Glimt
• Chelsea v Barcelona
• Villarreal meet Dortmund
• Leverkusen visit Man City
• Marseille v Newcastle
• Napoli v Qarabag
• Athletic Bilbao clash with Slavia Prague

Team News

Fofana, Caicedo, Garnacho, Gusto and Estevao all come into the Blues lineup. Excluded are Adarabioyo, Santos, Jamie Gittens, Joao Pedro and Liam Delap.

Lamine Yamal is in the starting lineup for Barcelona; Marcus Rashford is among the substitutes.

Chelsea (probable four-three-three) Sanchez; James, Wesley Fofana, Trevoh Chalobah, Cucurella; Gusto, Caicedo, Enzo Fernandez; Estevao, Pedro Neto, Garnacho.

Subs: Kjell Scherpen, Tosin Adarabioyo, Benoit Badiashile, Liam Delap, Bynoe-Gittens, Andrey Santos, Joao Pedro, Hato, Leo George, Joshua Acheampong, Guiu, Buonanotte.

Barcelona (possible four-two-three-one): Garcia; Kounde, Araujo, Cubarsi, Alejandro Balde; Eric Garcia, De Jong; Lamine Yamal, Fermin Lopez, Ferran Torres; Lewandowski.

Subs: Wojciech Szczesny, Diego Kochen, Raphinha, Rashford, Christensen, Marc Casado, Gerard, Dani Olmo, Noah Darvich, Dro Fernandez, Roony Bardghji.

Official Vincic (Slovenia).

Historical Context

The sole past encounter involving Marseille and Newcastle was the Europa League semi-final of 2004, won by an rising star from Côte d'Ivoire. Bayer Leverkusen and Manchester City have never met before. Barcelona and Chelsea have a peedie bit of history.

Initial Game Reports

Just one goal in the first half of the early fixtures. Dahl's sixth-minute strike has earned Jose Mourinho’s Benfica a 1-0 advantage away to the Dutch side.

Newcastle’s Trip to Marseille

Even though Newcastle traveled to the south of France coming off their restorative 2-1 home English top-flight win over Manchester City on the weekend, and having beaten Union SG, Benfica and Athletic Bilbao in the Champions League, their sole on the road victory since early April came in Brussels at Union Saint-Gilloise.

Not that Howe was eager to talk about the psychological aspect of this away form issue. “The Champions League is different to domestic games,” said the coach, whose team are 6th in the Champions League standings, with 9 points from a possible twelve and automatic progression to the last 16 nearly secured. “I don’t know if you can draw parallels between them.”

We have a separate live blog for Chelsea v Barcelona. Scott Murray, the MBM version of Diego Maradona is handling for that.