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Greetings to a fresh night of exciting Champions League soccer. 9 fixtures are planned for this evening, with three English teams in play. The Blues face Barça in the marquee match of the night, while Newcastle visit the French side and City host Bayer Leverkusen.

Group Rankings

It's the midway stage of the league stage, meaning the rankings is beginning to form. All six English teams are presently in the top 12, but there are only two points separating fifth and sixteenth position, thus there's a whiff of volatility about the entire situation. All remains open.

This Evening's Games

These are tonight’s games, all kicking off at 8pm except where noted:

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

Team News

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

Lamine Yamal starts for Barcelona; Rashford is on the bench.

The Blues (probable four-three-three) Robert Sanchez; Reece James, Fofana, Trevoh Chalobah, Cucurella; Malo Gusto, Caicedo, Enzo; Estevao, Neto, Garnacho.

Substitutes: Kjell Scherpen, Adarabioyo, Benoit Badiashile, Delap, Jamie Bynoe-Gittens, Andrey Santos, Pedro, Jorrel Hato, Leo George, Joshua Acheampong, Marc Guiu, Facundo Buonanotte.

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

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

Official Vincic (Slovenian).

Past Meetings

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

Initial Game Reports

Just one goal during the opening period of the early fixtures. Samuel Dahl's sixth-minute goal has earned Benfica under Mourinho a 1-0 lead away to the Dutch side.

Newcastle’s Trip to Marseille

Although The Magpies traveled to the south of France coming off their confidence-boosting 2-1 home English top-flight win against City on Saturday, and having defeated Union SG, the Portuguese side and Athletic Bilbao in the Champions League, their sole away win since early April came in the Belgian capital at Union Saint-Gilloise.

Not that Eddie Howe was overly keen to discuss the psychological aspect of this travel sickness. “The Champions League is distinct from domestic games,” said the manager, whose side are 6th in the Champions League standings, with nine points from a possible 12 and automatic progression to the knockout phase nearly secured. “I am not sure if you can draw parallels between them.”

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