The Blues look to take good recent domestic form onto the European stage against a side making its first visit to these shores. Club historian Rick Glanvill and club statistician Paul Dutton look at facts and figures from both sides of the channel…
TALKING POINTS
Saturday's Barclays Premier League victory over feisty Everton was our first victory over the Toffees since April 2006 and surely a good omen.
Still, the Blues were caught napping again for the visitors' eminently avoidable consolation goal on Saturday. A similar lapse in concentration - Salomon Kalou's penalty area hand-ball - cost Chelsea two points in our last Champions League match in Valencia.
The result at Mestalla - a draw - was a disappointment in that the Blues had done enough to bring home all three points. Rather than dominating as we might have been, Chelsea now lead a quite tight Group E, all three teams separated by just three points.
With the second and third highest seeded sides in our group now set to play each other twice, the Blues will be determined to continue a run of formidable home form in Europe, and confirm favourite status for one of the top two places.
KEY STAT
Chelsea are unbeaten in 24 group stage fixtures at Stamford Bridge, winning 18 and drawing six since a 2-0 defeat to Beşiktaş on 1 October 2003.
Genk arrive on the back of a 1-3 Jupiler Pro League defeat to fellow mid-tablers Lokeren. Congo attacker Liolo Benteke's finish from Kevin De Bruyne's assist is their only goal in three matches. They are presently severely limited by the loss of several players to injury, but Andre Villas-Boas knows better than to underestimate his opponents.
As boss of Porto he faced the league champions of Belgium last season in this competition. His side broke the deadlock soon after the start in Belgium, running out easy 3-0 winners.
It was Genk's turn to score early first in the Porto leg, and they held the Portuguese 1-1 at half-time, eventually succumbing 2-4. Poacher Jelle Vossen, one of Genk's many absentees tonight, scored both goals.
Mario Been's side started qualifying matches for this competition way back in late July. Playing at home, they drew their opening group game with Valencia 0-0, and had chances to win it.
Less impressive was their away showing at Leverkusen, who won 2-0 and were by far the better side. They have yet to register a goal in the 2011/12 tournament proper, having registered six in four qualifying games.
The KRC Genk we know today was formed as recently as 1988 with the merger of two clubs, Waterschei Thor and Winterslag. Their prefix begins with 'Koninklijke' - the Dutch for Royal.
Since they usually play in blue and white, to avoid a clash with Chelsea tonight they will be (and as it is almost party season) wearing their fetching magenta and black number. (Speaking of numbers, the ones on Genk's shorts are immense.)
Second host third in the other match in our group. The Germans have not beaten a Spanish side in their last seven attempts.
Other Group E fixture tonight
Bayer Leverkusen v Valencia - 7.45pm
| Champions League Group E table | |||||||
| P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | |
| Chelsea | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 4 |
| Bayer Leverkusen | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| Valencia | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| KRC Genk | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
This season's Champions League features 17 domestic league champions from last season, eight runners-up and five third-placed finishers.
Arsenal and Villarreal are the two clubs in the group stage to have finished in fourth place in their domestic league.
Only Genk from Group E topped their league last season, Chelsea and Bayer were runners-up and Valencia finished third in La Primera.
Click on tabs above for more briefing.
