Chelsea host Juventus in the penultimate game of Group H at Stamford Bridge this evening knowing a win or draw (or Zenit slipping up away to Malmo) will secure a Champions League knockout place in our 18th campaign.

This is Thomas Tuchel’s 50th match in charge of the Blues and he has a 63.3 per cent win rate, even excluding the Super Cup and Carabao Cup successes thanks to penalty shoot-outs.

A victory by greater than one goal will swing the balance in head-to-head results and set the Blues on course to being seeded in the Round of 16 draw on 13 December. Juve have already qualified and would win the group should they avoid defeat this evening.

The Bianconeri‘s campaign has faltered domestically but they won 2-0 at Lazio on Saturday and have won their past seven European group-stage games. The Premier League leaders, though, are unbeaten across all competitions in nine games, and have won in each of our past four Champions League matches at the Bridge without conceding.

Chelsea team news

The Blues were aggressive and purposeful straight from the huntsman’s fanfare at Leicester, producing one of the most comprehensive performances of the Thomas Tuchel era.

Over 90 minutes we matched prolific chance-creation (albeit too often flagged for offside) with a steely determination not to concede at the other end. Edou Mendy has now matched Petr Cech’s record of 35 clean sheets in his first 60 games, and the Blues are yet to concede more than one goal in any game this season.

The Londoners also boast the best defensive record across all eight Champions League groups with just one goal conceded – though that was Federico Chiesa’s winner in Turin.

One improvement in this latest European excursion would be finding the target more regularly. Back in September, Juve’s Wojciech Szczesny faced 16 attempts on goal, the most ever recorded by the Blues without scoring in a Champions League away match.

Romelu Lukaku and Kai Havertz will both feel they should have at least tested the former Arsenal keeper from close range, and one on-target shot was a disappointing return. The hosts managed three from six attempts.

With Manchester United to come on Sunday (albeit five days away), we might expect one or two tweaks to the team that won comprehensively at Leicester, though Mateo Kovacic remains sidelined and Kai Havertz is nursing a tight hamstring. Jorginho’s hobble-off at Leicester was caused by nothing more than cramp.

Sunday may be a more realistic target for Lukaku’s first full game in a month, but he may well comprise one of the five substitutes allowed in this competition.

Andreas Christensen, Cesar Azpilicueta or Marcos Alonso could come into defence. Christian Pulisic and Hakim Ziyech will be looking to build on their highly effective weekend cameos, and Timo Werner might be unleashed against the depleted visitors.

Old Lady back on her feet

Juventus ended Lazio’s unbeaten 19-game run on Saturday with a brace of Leonardo Bonucci penalties, one contentiously awarded after a tackle on former Blues forward Alvaro Morata.

Yet Max Allegri’s team remain eighth in Series A, 11 points behind Napoli and AC Milan. Of equal concern will be his growing list of casualties, defender Danilo, injured in Rome, and winger Dejan Kulusevski, who missed training yesterday, being the latest.

Paulo Dybala, one of the Bianconeri’s most prominent providers this season alongside the dynamic Federico Chiesa, may be ready to return, if not start, but winger Federico Bernardeschi, onetime Gunners middleman Aaron Ramsey, and two regular defenders, Mattia de Sciglio and the veteran Giorgio Chiellini, look very doubtful.

The absentees could mean former Stamford Bridge loanee Juan Cuadrado dropping back from wing-back to full-back and a change of system from 3-4-3 to 4-3-3, with Dejan Kulusevski, a regular under Andrea Pirlo, coming in as winger.

Chelsea dominated the opening exchanges in Turin back on Matchday 2 but could not pierce the hosts’ massed defence. When they did have possession, Juve were expansive and intense, pinging plenty of long diagonal passes and crosses, harrying to win the second ball closer to goal.

The only goal of the night came one of those balls, nodded on and cleverly worked by Bernardeschi for Chiesa to finish, the Londoners’ backline for once caught napping. However the provider, used as a striker, later missed an open goal which could ultimately prove costly.

One name Allegri will look for in the Blues’ starting 11 before deciding his approach is Romelu Lukaku. Describing the striker as ‘a point of reference’, Juve’s coach says ‘without him, Chelsea play with more speed and counter-attacks; his presence changes the way the opposition defends.’

We have history

Chelsea are looking to restore balance in results between the two clubs this evening. Prior to Juve’s 1-0 in the reverse fixture there had been one victory for each side plus two draws.

Most recently at the Bridge in 2012/13, Roberto Di Matteo’s defending European champions raced into a 2-0 lead with a brilliant Oscar brace but were pegged back at 2-2. Didier Drogba scored the only goal of the Round of 16 first-leg meeting in SW6 in 2008/09.

Youth can lead the way

There is also plenty at stake in Group H of UEFA’s Youth League, where group-winners progress to the round of 16 while runners-up navigate play-offs. Chelsea and Juventus are tied on nine points and in the event they finish the stage on equal terms the head-to-head record comes into play. The reverse fixture produced a 3-1 for the hosts in Turin but the decisive game comes today at Cobham in a 3pm kick-off which is live streamed.

500 up

Hakim Ziyech’s winning goal in our last European match at Malmo was Chelsea’s 500th in all European competitions. Didier Drogba is our leading scorer in continental football, all of his goals coming in the Champions League.

The 500 top 10

1 Didier Drogba (2004–15)  362 Frank Lampard (2001–14)  253 Olivier Giroud (2018–21)  184 Fernando Torres (2011–14)  175 John Terry (1998–2017)  13= Willian (2013–20)  137 Eden Hazard (2012–19)  12= Nicolas Anelka (2008–12)  12= Tore Andre Flo (1997–2001)  12= Peter Osgood (1964–1974)  12

Yellow legends

A first run out of the season for Chelsea’s change kit at the King Power stadium and the nature of the victory with wing-backs to the fore brought to mind marauding 1990s right-back Dan Petrescu.

In 1996, when the club returned to our ‘traditional’ away colour after a flirtation with ‘tangerine and graphite’, Petrescu, who donned a similar hue for the Romania national team, predicted the Londoners would be ‘legends in yellow’. And so it proved when Ruud Gullit’s men lifted the FA Cup the following May.

Club World Cupdate

Over the next few days European champions Chelsea will discover the last potential opponents in the Club World Cup, to be held in the UAE in early 2022.

The all-Brazilian Copa Libertadores final on Saturday (kick off in Uruguay at 8pm UK time) is between Flamengo and defending champions Palmeiras. Like the Londoners, the CONMEBOL victors will join the tournament in the semi-finals.

Asia’s representatives, who start in round two, will come out of this afternoon’s AFC Champions League final between Pohang Steelers of South Korea and Saudi club Al-Hilal, which starts in Riyadh at 4pm UK time.

Champions League Matchday 5 fixtures

Tuesday

Group EBarcelona v Benfica 8pmDynamo Kiev v Bayern Munich 5.45pm

Group FVillarreal v Man Utd 5.45pmYoung Boys v Atalanta 8pm

Group GLille v RB Salzburg 8pmSevilla v Wolfsburg 8pmGroup HChelsea v Juventus 8pmMalmo v Zenit St Petersburg 8pm

Wednesday

Group AClub Brugge v RB Leipzig 8pmMan City v Paris Saint Germain 8pm

Group BAtletico Madrid v AC Milan 8pmLiverpool v Porto 8pm

Group CBesiktas v Ajax 5.45pmSporting Lisbon v Dortmund 8pm

Group DInter v Shakhtar Donetsk 5.45pmSheriff v Real Madrid 8pm