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Welcome to a fresh night of exciting Champions League soccer. 9 matches are planned for this evening, including 3 English clubs in action. Chelsea meet Barça in the standout match of the night, whilst The Magpies visit the French side and City welcome Leverkusen.

League Table

It's the midway stage of the league stage, meaning the rankings is starting to take shape. All six English clubs are currently in the upper twelve, but there are only 2 points separating fifth and sixteenth place, thus there's a sense of snakes and ladders about the whole thing. All remains open.

Tonight’s Fixtures

Here are tonight’s matches, all kicking off at 8pm unless stated:

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

Team News

Fofana, Moises Caicedo, Garnacho, Gusto and Estevao all come into the Blues team. Out go Tosin Adarabioyo, Santos, Jamie Gittens, Joao Pedro and Liam Delap.

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

Chelsea (probable 4-3-3) Sanchez; James, Wesley Fofana, Trevoh Chalobah, Cucurella; Gusto, Moises Caicedo, Enzo Fernandez; Estevao, Pedro Neto, Alejandro Garnacho.

Subs: Kjell Scherpen, Adarabioyo, Badiashile, Delap, Jamie Bynoe-Gittens, Andrey Santos, Pedro, Hato, George, Joshua Acheampong, Marc Guiu, Buonanotte.

Barça (possible 4-2-3-1): Garcia; Kounde, Ronald Araujo, Pau Cubarsi, Alejandro Balde; Garcia, De Jong; Yamal, Fermin Lopez, Ferran Torres; Lewandowski.

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

Official Vincic (Slovenia).

Previous Encounters

The only previous meeting involving Newcastle and Marseille was the Uefa Cup semifinal of 2003-04, won by an emerging superstar from Côte d'Ivoire. Manchester City and Bayer Leverkusen have never met before. Barcelona and Chelsea have a peedie bit of history.

Early Match Updates

Only a single goal in the first half of the two early games. Samuel Dahl's 6th-minute sizzler has earned Benfica under Mourinho a one-nil lead at the Dutch side.

Marseille v Newcastle Preview

Even though The Magpies arrived in the south of France fresh from their confidence-boosting 2-1 home English top-flight win over Manchester City on the weekend, and having defeated Union SG, Benfica and Bilbao in the European Cup, their only on the road victory since the start of April came in Brussels at Union Saint-Gilloise.

It's not that Howe was overly keen to discuss the mental side of this travel sickness. “The Champions League is distinct from Premier League games,” said the coach, whose side are 6th in the European table, with 9 pts from a possible 12 and direct qualification to the knockout phase nearly secured. “I am not sure if you can draw parallels between them.”

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