Key events
6 min: A great save from Hannah Hampton but the offside flag goes up afterwards. That chance came as Erin Cuthbert slipped and Mary Fowler wins the ball, finding Jill Roord but she is offside.
4 min: Lauren James crosses into the box but Ayaka Yamashita reads it well to pluck it out of the air. Both sides trying to get a fast start in this one.
3 min: Kerolin is right into this match, City thread her the ball and she whips an effort in from outside the box. It goes just over the bar.
2 min: Both teams finding their feet in this one. Peter Collins has emailed and got involved in snacj chat, though I am unsure it counts as a snack:
A bottle of rioja!
Kick-off! Man City 0-0 Chelsea
Here we go then. Can either side take control of this Champions League quarter-final? All to come. Also a reminder that VAR is in operation this evening.
I want to hear from you and I want to revive one of my favourite talking points, snack chat. What have you got to treat yourself with during this match? Let me know via email.
I have stumbled across a fun fact. According to Opta, if Chelsea avoid defeat this evening they will have the longest ever unbeaten streak across all competitions for an English top-flight team in the WSL era. They are currently on 31 games unbeaten.
Wolfsburg v Barcelona has finished 4-1 in favour of the defending champions. The German side have a lot to do when they travel to Barca next week.
Peter Oh has emailed and said:
After yesterday’s proceedings at Real Mudrid were muddied by the state of the pitch, I hope the hosts will steer clear of any unfavourable comparisons to Mudchester City.
I love the puns Peter, as ever. But I have good news, the Joie Stadium pitch looks in good condition. If anyone is confused by what we’re talking about, have a read of this:
There is another first leg of a quarter-final taking place already today between Barcelona and Wolfsburg. Defending champions Barca are winning 3-1.
Arsenal fell to a 2-0 defeat against Real Madrid in the first leg of their quarter-final yesterday. You can recap the action here:
Tom Garry
Chelsea are unbeaten in 28 games under Sonia Bompastor – with 26 wins – and arrive in Manchester for the first leg of their European quarter-final as strong favourites to progress to the semi-finals, and harbour realistic ambitions of winning their first Women’s Champions League title in Lisbon in May.
The task of trying to beat this seemingly unstoppable force, over two legs across the next nine days, falls to Manchester City, who are in the unenviable position of facing Chelsea in four consecutive games in three competitions. Nick Cushing, who has been back at the club for only a week, has said their performance in his first game back in charge, the League Cup final defeat on Saturday, gave him belief that they could better Chelsea in Europe – but what do they need to do to achieve that?
Read the full piece:
Team news
The team news is here! Manchester City make three changes from the League Cup final with Jess Park, Kerolin and Lily Murphy coming into the starting XI for Aoba Fujino, Bunny Shaw and Vivianne Miedema. Fujino and Shaw are injured, while Miedema drops to the bench.
Man City: Yamashita, Casparij, Prior, Aleixandri (C), Ouahabi, Hasegawa, Roord, Park, Kerolin, Murphy, Fowler
Subs: Keating, Startup, Layzell, Miedema, Coombs, Wienroither, Blindkilde Brown
Chelsea, meanwhile, make two changes with Keira Walsh and Aggie Beever-Jones coming into the starting team for Johanna Rytting Kaneryd and Sjoeke Nüsken. There is also no Sam Kerr in the matchday squad.
Chelsea: Hampton; Bronze, Björn, Bright, Baltimore; Walsh, Cuthbert, Macario; Beever-Jones, Ramirez, James.
Subs: Spencer, Cox, Nüsken, Lawrence, Kaptein, Rytting Kaneryd, Charles, Hamano, Jean-Francois, Brown.
Preamble
Hello and welcome to the first leg of the Women’s Champions League quarter-final between Manchester City and Chelsea.
It is also the second game of four that the two clubs will play against each other over a period of 12 days. The first was the League Cup final which Chelsea won 2-1.
City have been hit with injury news before tonight’s match with both Bunny Shaw and Aoba Fujino ruled out with muscle injuries. For Chelsea, Sam Kerr has been added to the club’s Women’s Champions League squad for the knockout stages but it is unclear if she will feature tonight.
The team news will drop shortly so stay updated before kick-off at 8pm GMT.