After losing their opening Group A games, Laurent Blanc, the Bordeaux coach, and his AS Roma counterpart Luciano Spalletti are under pressure heading into tonight's Champions League meeting.

After losing their opening Group A games, Laurent Blanc, the Bordeaux coach, and his AS Roma counterpart Luciano Spalletti are under pressure heading into tonight's Champions League meeting.

Blanc wants a drastic improvement from Bordeaux after one win in the last five - including a 4-0 defeat at last season's runner-up Chelsea - and Spalletti needs to reassure fans that the embarrassing 2-1 home defeat to unheralded Cluj was a glitch.

With Chelsea expected to pick up another three points at Cluj, neither side can afford to fall behind. "We're both at the same level, we have no points," said Blanc. "The difference is that we lost away and they lost their match at home. They really need to get points away from home, and they will come to Bordeaux with a lot of ambition to get one point, or even three."

Blanc said his team's hopes of qualifying in the event of another defeat are slim. "If we lose, we won't be eliminated, but we'll have used up most of our chances," he said.

Both teams were runners-up in their respective leagues last season, but both have slumped this term.

Bordeaux are in seventh place and already eight points behind leaders Lyon after just seven rounds, while Roma are five points off the lead.

A win for Chelsea will see them in firm control of the group as Jose Mourinho, the club's former manager, welcomes Werder Bremen to the San Siro with his Inter Milan side hoping to end their European drought.

The Italian side have not won the European title since 1965 and Mourinho, who won it four years ago with FC Porto, knows, like at Chelsea, he is expected to bring success.

Top of Group B, Inter host the German side after victory at Panathinaikos. The Greek club travel to Cyprus to face Anorthosis Famagusta.

Inter lost 1-0 to AC Milan on Sunday but Javier Zanetti, their Argentine captain, says the players are already over that defeat. "The loss to Milan is behind us, now our legs and minds are concentrated on the Champions League," he said.

Barcelona, two-time winners and three-time runners-up, have recovered from a slow start to the season and travel to the Ukraine to face Shakhtar Donetsk.

Both teams share the lead in Group C. Sporting Lisbon and FC Basel meet, each searching for their first point.