Good afternoon and welcome to our coverage of Dynamo Kiev v Stoke City in Group E of the Europa League from the Lobanovskyi Stadium.

Dynamo are enjoying the early possession and Stoke are happy to let them have it in their own half at this stage

Kenwyne Jones gets the game underway

Captains Olexandr Shovkovski and Ryan Shawcros shake hands and it is Stoke who will kick-off

The teams are on their way out in the Valeriy Lobanovskiy Stadium and we are moments away from kick-off.

Stoke manager Tony Pulis is making his continental coaching debut this season, his only previous involvement in European competition came as a youth player; he featured for Wales as a defender in seven International Youth Tournament games in 1975 and 1976.

Stoke's Danish goalkeeper Thomas Sørensen came up against his Dynamo counterpart Olexandr Shovkovskiy in a 1-1 draw between Denmark and Ukraine in 2006 FIFA World Cup qualifying in Copenhagen.

In Stoke's eight games so far this season (four in the Premier League and four in the Europa League qualifiers) they have conceded only two goals, neither of which came in their away games in this competition. They have only scored 10 goals in those games as well, so the strong defence has been key.

A 2-0 defeat against FC Rubin Kazan in this season's UEFA Champions League third qualifying round was Dynamo's only loss in their last 10 home games in Europe, with their record in that period reading W5 D4 L1.

Dynamo Kiev have made a typically strong start to their Ukranian Premier League season as they are undefeated after nine game, winning seven and drawing two. They sit second, only behind Shakhtar Donetsk on goal difference. Stoke have had an encouraging start to their campaign as well, winning two and drawing two of their first four and sitting in fifth position.

Stoke have chosen to only name five substitutes tonight compared to Dynamo's seven. The Stoke bench includes: Nash, Pennant, Whitehead, Arismendi and Walters. Dynamo's subs are: Koval, Khacheridi, Aliev, Haruna, Correa, Dudu Rodrigues and Brown

Unsurprisingly these two teams have never met in the past and in fact Stoke have never faced any team from Ukraine. Dynamo Kiev have played English teams 20 times in the past though, winning four, drawing five and losing 11.

Group E also includes Turkish side Besiktas and Israel's Maccabi Tel Aviv who face off in Istanbul tonight. It certainly is a lot of travelling for Stoke in this year's competition, as Tony Pulis eluded to with these comments:

Very strong teams fielded by both clubs with Stoke choosing to deploy two strikers in the forms of Cameron Jerome and Kenwynne Jones. Peter Crouch had to stay behind due to an injury he picked up earlier in the week.

Stoke City: Sorensen, Huth, Shawcross, Upson, Wilkinson, Shotton, Whelan, Diao, Palacios, Jones, Jerome

The teams are in: Dynamo Kiev: Shovkovski, Danilo Silva, Betao, Popov, Vukojevic, Garmash, Ninkovic, Yussuf, Shevchenko, Yarmolenko, Milevskiy