Chelsea vs Salzburg

Stamford Bridge is the venue as Chelsea and Red Bull Salzburg look to claim their first win in the 2022/23 Champions League season.

Chelsea’s underwhelming 1-0 defeat away to Dinamo Zagreb in a curtain-raising Group C fixture brought Thomas Tuchel’s managerial stint in west London to a halt on his 100th game at the helm. It’s now up to new boss Graham Potter to get the ‘Blues’ back on track and help them avoid losing their opening two Champions League group stage games for the first time in the club’s history. After drawing a blank in Zagreb, the ‘Pensioners’ stare down the barrel of back-to-back Champions League outings without scoring across a single season for the first time since 2010/11. However, Chelsea can draw inspiration from their stellar home form in Europe’s most prestigious club competition, having lost only once in their last 20 Champions League fixtures at the Bridge (W13, D6).

In the meantime, visiting RB Salzburg held defending Serie A champions AC Milan to a 1-1 home draw on matchday one, showing last season’s progression into the Champions League knockouts was no fluke. However, Matthias Jaissle’s side will be out to defy their underwhelming three-game losing streak in the Champions League away matches, with a potentially historic achievement within reach. Indeed, ‘Die Roten Bullen’ have never won a European meeting with English opponents, suffering five defeats in their previous six such match-ups (D1). There’s every reason for optimism in the visiting camp as the perennial Austrian champions head into proceedings having gone unbeaten in their last eight outings across all competitions (W7, D1), including a comprehensive 3-0 win away to fellow domestic rivals Ried at the weekend.