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Welcome to a fresh night of electrifying European Cup soccer. 9 matches are set for this evening, with three English teams in action. The Blues face Barcelona in the key match of the night, while Newcastle visit Marseille and Manchester City welcome Bayer Leverkusen.

League Table

We're at the halfway stage of the group stage, so the standings is taking form. Each of the six British clubs are presently in the top 12, but there are only 2 pts between 5th and sixteenth position, so there's a hint of snakes and ladders about the entire situation. It’s all up for grabs.

Tonight’s Fixtures

These are this evening's games, all starting at 8pm except where noted:

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

Squad Updates

Fofana, Moises Caicedo, Alejandro Garnacho, Gusto and Estevao all come into the Chelsea side. Out go Tosin Adarabioyo, Andrey Santos, Jamie Gittens, Pedro and Liam Delap.

Yamal is in the starting lineup for Barcelona; Rashford is among the substitutes.

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

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

Barcelona (probable four-two-three-one): Joan Garcia; Jules Kounde, Ronald Araujo, Pau Cubarsi, Alejandro Balde; Garcia, De Jong; Lamine Yamal, Fermin Lopez, Torres; Lewandowski.

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

Official Slavko Vincic (Slovenian).

Past Meetings

The only previous meeting between Marseille and Newcastle was the Europa League semi-final of 2003-04, claimed by an emerging superstar from Côte d'Ivoire. Manchester City and Bayer Leverkusen have not faced each other previously. Barcelona and Chelsea 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 sizzler has given Benfica under Mourinho a 1-0 advantage away to Ajax.

Newcastle’s Trip to Marseille

Even though Newcastle traveled to the south of France fresh from their confidence-boosting two-one home English top-flight win over Manchester City on Saturday, and having defeated Union SG, Benfica and Athletic Bilbao in the Champions League, their only on the road win since the start of April came in Brussels at Union SG.

It's not that Howe was overly keen to talk about the psychological aspect of this away form issue. “The Champions League is different to domestic games,” said the coach, whose team are 6th in the European table, with nine points from a possible twelve and direct progression to the last 16 almost within touching distance. “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 Diego Maradona is on duty for that.