How will Chelsea cope with their Champions League last 16 visit from Barcelona, at 7.45pm on BT Sport 2?

While they may have overcame their recent wobble – one that resulted in consecutive losses against Arsenal, Bournemouth and Watford – this still isn’t the best time for Chelsea to have to deal with such a difficult game, given that Tuesday’s fixture is the Blues’ third in 8 days. And though they did indeed beat West Brom 3-0 in the Premier League and Hull 4-0 in the FA Cup, teams of that quality – one in the Championship, the other on their way there – aren’t exactly adequate preparation for a battle against Barcelona.



Still, they are undoubted positives to be taken from those games. Eden Hazard has continued to compensate for Alvaro Morata’s absence/lack of full fitness, with the Belgian’s brace against the Baggies taking his season total to 15 goals, 3 more than the Spaniard’s. Olivier Giroud, meanwhile, scored his first goal for the Blues against Hull, leaving him at a Super Mega PGM of 21-26 to Hazard’s 20-24 and Morata’s 22-27.

As for Barcelona, they’ve gone one better than Man City, and are yet to lose a La Liga game in 2017/18.They went similarly unbeaten during the Champions League group stages, conceding just 1 goal in 6 games while picking up dominant home wins over Juventus, Olympiakos and Sporting Lisbon. In fact, Barca have only lost 3 games all season, and even then that’s only if you include both legs of the Supercopa de Espana, and the 1st leg of their Copa del Rey quarter-final against Espanyol (which they went on to win 2-1 on aggregate).

Unsurprisingly Lionel Messi has led from the front, with the diminutive Argentine on 27 goals in all competitions and at a Super Mega PGM of 45-52. Luis Suarez, meanwhile, is on 20 and at a Super Mega PGM of 34-40 as he chases his first Champions League goal of the season.

The Blues haven’t had a great record against ‘big sides’ in 2017/18, and they don’t come bigger than the Nou Camp’s finest, with Spreadex offering a Barcelona/Chelsea (h) Goal Supremacy spread of 0.3-0.5 alongside a Total Goals spread of 2.5-2.7.