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Welcome to a fresh night of exciting European Cup football. Nine games are scheduled for tonight, including 3 English teams in play. The Blues take on Barça in the key match of the night, whilst Newcastle visit Marseille and City welcome Bayer Leverkusen.

Group Rankings

We're at the midway stage of the group stage, so the rankings is beginning to form. Each of the six British teams are currently in the upper twelve, but there are only 2 pts separating 5th and sixteenth position, thus there's a whiff of volatility about the whole thing. Everything is to play for.

Tonight’s Fixtures

Here are this evening's matches, each kicking off at 8pm unless stated:

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

Team News

Fofana, Moises Caicedo, Garnacho, Malo Gusto and Estevao join the Blues team. Out go Adarabioyo, Santos, Jamie Gittens, Joao Pedro and Liam Delap.

Yamal starts for Barça; Marcus Rashford is among the substitutes.

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

Substitutes: Kjell Scherpen, Tosin Adarabioyo, Badiashile, Liam Delap, Jamie Bynoe-Gittens, Santos, Joao Pedro, Jorrel Hato, George, Joshua Acheampong, Guiu, Facundo Buonanotte.

Barça (probable 4-2-3-1): Joan Garcia; Kounde, Ronald Araujo, Cubarsi, Alejandro Balde; Eric Garcia, De Jong; Lamine Yamal, Fermin Lopez, Torres; Lewandowski.

Substitutes: Wojciech Szczesny, Diego Kochen, Raphinha, Marcus Rashford, Andreas Christensen, Marc Casado, Gerard, Dani Olmo, Noah Darvich, Dario Fernandez, Roony Bardghji.

Official Slavko Vincic (Slovenia).

Past Meetings

The sole past encounter between Newcastle and Marseille was the Uefa Cup semifinal of 2004, claimed by an rising superstar from Ivory Coast. Bayer Leverkusen and Manchester City have never met before. Chelsea and Barcelona have a peedie bit of history.

Early Match Updates

Just one goal during the opening period of the two early games. Dahl's 6th-minute strike has given Jose Mourinho’s Benfica a 1-0 lead at Ajax.

Newcastle’s Trip to Marseille

Even though The Magpies arrived in the French south coming off their restorative 2-1 home English top-flight victory over Manchester City on Saturday, and having defeated Union Saint-Gilloise, the Portuguese side and Bilbao in the European Cup, their sole on the road win since the start of April came in Brussels at Union Saint-Gilloise.

Not that Eddie Howe was overly keen to talk about the psychological aspect of this away form issue. “The European Cup is different to Premier League games,” said the manager, whose side are sixth in the European table, with 9 points from a available twelve and direct progression to the knockout phase almost within touching distance. “I don’t know if you can draw parallels between them.”

We have a separate live blog for Barcelona vs Chelsea. Murray, the MBM equivalent of Maradona is on duty for that.