19:10 GMT
Ah, first of all, this is Graham Potter. He says he thought his team attacked West Ham early on but tonight is very different and his team are looking forward to it. You feel happy to be in this position and look forward to accepting it – you need to shut out external things, be present and hold on to the moments; The crowd will be a factor because it’s a Champions League night and Chelsea have to take the pressure “because that’s when the good stuff happens”.
Updated at 19:10 GMT
19.07 GMT
Danger, I’ll write these down, then we’ll talk about what they mean.
Updated at 19:07 GMT
19.07 GMT
teams!
Borussia Dortmund (4-1-4-1): bucket; Wolf, Sule, Schlotterbeck, Guerreiro; Emre can; Brandt, Bellingham, Özcan, Adeyemi; Hall. Subtitle: Reyna, Dahoud, Reus, Hummels, Modeste, Malen, Meunier, Ryerson, Meyer, Rothe, Bynoe-Gittens, Coulibaly.
Chelsea (4-2-3-1): Kepa; James, Thiago Silva, Koulibaly, Chilwell; Enzo Fernández, loftus cheek; Ziyech, João Félix, Mudryk; Havertz. Subtitle: Kovacic, Bettinelli, Chalobah, Mount, Zakaria, Gallagher, Azpilicueta, Chukwuemeka, Cucurella, Fofana, Bergstrom, Hall.
Updated at 19:07 GMT
18:45 GMT
preamble
Tenth in the league with 23 goals scored in 22 games, out of the FA Cup and with just three wins in the last 15 – against Dinamo Zagreb, Bournemouth and Fulham – an eight-lost streak. Chelsea are trash right?
Uh, not quite. Well, quite – but there’s more to it than that. Graham Potter inherited an unbalanced roster lacking masking agent N’Golo Kanté and all that is Reece James, and then spent some time making this worse by acquiring a multitude of players of vulgar style and little apparent plan .
However, some of these newcomers are excellent. Enzo Fernández settled in straight away, João Félix looks the part too and Mykhailo Mudryk has plenty of talent – plus James is fit again.
In any case, Potter is a systems trainer, so he needs time to get his players, many of whom are inexperienced, to do what he wants – yes, even more so now there are 690,721 new ones to assimilate – and finally we’re starting to see signs. Although Chelsea didn’t beat West Ham last weekend, they created enough chances to win three games and even if the lack of a finisher costs them in the short term, once they add one they will be a very serious problem.
Whether they are ready to beat Dortmund – who have gone through their own process – is another question. They’re improving fast after a poor start to the season, now they know what Edin Terzic wants from them and although Youssoufa Moukoko is injured, Jude Bellingham, Julian Brandt and Gio Reyna have plenty to offer. And that’s before we look at Jamie Bynoe-Gittens – 18, Englishman and former Chelsea player – who scored at the weekend.
All of which means that when the draw was made this looked like one of his less intriguing ties, but now that it’s arrived it is intriguing.
Kick-off: 9pm local time, 8pm GMT
Updated at 17:46 GMT