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Greetings to a fresh evening of electrifying Champions League football. Nine games are scheduled for tonight, including 3 British teams in play. Chelsea meet Barcelona in the standout fixture of the night, whilst Newcastle visit Marseille and Manchester City welcome Leverkusen.

League Table

It's the midway stage of the league stage, so the standings is beginning to form. All six English sides are presently in the top 12, but there are only 2 pts between fifth and sixteenth place, so there's a whiff of uncertainty about the entire situation. All remains open.

Match Schedule

Here are this evening's fixtures, all starting at 8pm except where noted:

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

Squad Updates

Wesley Fofana, Caicedo, Alejandro Garnacho, Gusto and Estevao all come into the Blues side. Out go Tosin Adarabioyo, Santos, Gittens, Joao Pedro and Delap.

Lamine Yamal is in the starting lineup for Barça; Rashford is on the bench.

The Blues (possible 4-3-3) Sanchez; James, Fofana, Trevoh Chalobah, Marc Cucurella; Gusto, Moises Caicedo, Enzo; Estevao, Neto, Alejandro Garnacho.

Substitutes: Jorgensen, Adarabioyo, Benoit Badiashile, Liam Delap, Bynoe-Gittens, Santos, Pedro, Jorrel Hato, Leo George, Joshua Acheampong, Marc Guiu, Facundo Buonanotte.

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

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

Official Slavko Vincic (Slovenia).

Past Meetings

The sole past encounter involving Newcastle and Marseille was the Europa League semi-final of 2003-04, claimed by an emerging star from Ivory Coast. Manchester City and Bayer Leverkusen have never met before. Barcelona and Chelsea have a peedie bit of history.

Initial Game Reports

Only a single goal during the opening period of the two early games. Dahl's 6th-minute strike has earned Jose Mourinho’s Benfica a 1-0 advantage away to the Dutch side.

Newcastle’s Trip to Marseille

Even though The Magpies arrived in the French south coming off their confidence-boosting two-one home English top-flight win against Manchester City on the weekend, and having defeated Union Saint-Gilloise, the Portuguese side and Athletic Bilbao in the Champions League, their only away win since the start of April came in Brussels at Union SG.

Not that Eddie Howe was overly keen to talk about the psychological aspect of this travel sickness. “The European Cup is different to Premier League games,” said the coach, whose team are 6th in the Champions League standings, with nine pts from a possible twelve and automatic progression to the knockout phase almost within touching distance. “I don’t know if you can compare them.”

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