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Greetings to another evening of exciting European Cup football. 9 fixtures are set for this evening, including three British teams in play. The Blues meet Barça in the key fixture of the evening, whilst Newcastle visit Marseille and City welcome Leverkusen.

Group Rankings

We're at the midway point of the group stage, so the standings is taking form. All six British clubs are presently in the top 12, but there are only two points separating 5th and 16th place, thus there's a sense of volatility about the whole thing. All remains open.

Tonight’s Fixtures

These are this evening's fixtures, each starting at 8pm except where noted:

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

Team News

Wesley Fofana, Caicedo, Garnacho, Malo Gusto and Estevao are included in the Chelsea side. Excluded are Adarabioyo, Andrey Santos, Jamie Gittens, Joao Pedro and Delap.

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

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

Subs: Jorgensen, Adarabioyo, Badiashile, Delap, Jamie Bynoe-Gittens, Santos, Pedro, Hato, George, Acheampong, Guiu, Buonanotte.

Barcelona (possible 4-2-3-1): Garcia; Kounde, Araujo, Pau Cubarsi, Alejandro Balde; Garcia, Frenkie de Jong; Lamine Yamal, Fermin Lopez, Ferran Torres; Lewandowski.

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

Official Vincic (Slovenian).

Previous Encounters

The sole past encounter involving Newcastle and Marseille was the Uefa Cup semi-final of 2003-04, won by an rising star from Côte d'Ivoire. Bayer Leverkusen and Manchester City have never met before. Barcelona and Chelsea have some past encounters.

Initial Game Reports

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

Newcastle’s Trip to Marseille

Even though Newcastle arrived in the French south fresh from their restorative two-one home Premier League win over Manchester City on the weekend, and having defeated Union SG, the Portuguese side and Athletic Bilbao in the Champions League, their only away victory since early April came in the Belgian capital at Union SG.

Not that Howe was eager to talk about the psychological aspect of this away form issue. “The Champions League is different to Premier League games,” said the manager, whose team are 6th in the Champions League standings, with 9 pts from a available 12 and direct qualification 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. Scott Murray, the MBM version of Maradona is on duty for that.