Afternoon all. I just wanted to gather some thoughts and opinions on the CL draw and who you'd like your teams to avoid or entertain in the group stages? Pot 1 Manchester United, FC Barcelona, Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Real Madrid, FC Porto, Inter Milan Pot 2 AC Milan, Lyon, Shakthar Donetsk, Valencia, Benfica Lisbon, Villareal, CSKA Moscow, Marseille Pot 3 Zenit St.Petersburg, Ajax Amsterdam, Leverkusen, Olympiakos Piraus, Lille, Basle, BATE Borisov, Manchester City Pot 4 Dortmund, Napoli, Dinamo Zagreb, APOEL Nicosia, Genk, Plzen, Otelui Galati, Trabzonspor =============================================================== I'd like to offer my congratulations to Man City on what will be their first CL campaign. I think of the four teams most of the attention will be on City's draw and rightly so. Everybody is saying Barca are the team from Pot City will want to avoid but I disagree. Barca usually aren't good until the knock out stages and I personally think Real Madrid will be the ones from Pot 1 to avoid, they will probably want to draw Inter or Porto and then leave the rest to chance. =============================================================== Key fixtures after European nights: Manchester United vs CHELSEA CHELSEA vs Manchester City Manchester United vs Manchester City Tottenham Hotspur vs Arsenal Liverpool vs Manchester City
Sky Sports are desperately trying to make Man City seem important. The fact is they are not, they are a small club ( albeit wealthy ) way out of there normal depth ( that would be avoiding relegation ). In the CL as far as neutrals, eufa and the footballing world are concerned.....Barcelona, Real Madrid, Man Utd, AC Milan........these sort of clubs matter. Nobodies like Man City do not. I really dont get why Sky try so hard to make them seem like a club who people are interested in.
They did the same with Chelsea years ago District Line so I hardly think they are obsessed with Northern Clubs. Infact I am surprised people down South are even aware that there is a North. Plus lets be honest here, the north is far superior in terms of Sports.
Yes that's certainly true...Especially since Sky are based in London. All of the papers are based in London. No the teams from the North West are just superior compared to them from London.
Yeh I did wonder why he would make such a stupid claim. Everyone whos ever breathed air knows the london based media are the most biased idiots on earth.
Hope sh!!!ty get dortmound, barca and milan and come bottom. Hope chavski get valencia, lille and napoli and come bottom too. Hope we get shakter, piraus and trabzonspor. No point hoping who manure get cos they will get the easiest group as usual.
The only teams we need to avoid are the ones that we already will avoid by virtue of being in pot 1. Maybe Chelsea, Arsenal or City should be worried about Dortmund, who have lost their best player, or Napoli, who were held to a draw at home by the worst Liverpool side I've ever seen, but we will be fine against them.
I would like Benfica, Lille and Dortmund. All relatively easy to get to and I have always wanted to go to Dortmund especially. Potential Group of Death for us: Man Utd, AC Milan, Zenit St Petersburg, Napoli.
O and 1 more wish that probably has already come true. I hope that Nasri wont be able to find any good restaurants to eat at during his time in Manchester.
I wouldnt fancy a trip to naples. We all know that trying to judge sides by europa league performance is a joke. That tournament is basically the carling cup, and look who won that last year. Napoli have stengthened, and with players like inler and cavani they will be tough to beat.
In a perfect world I would hope we get Barcelona, real madrid and Man City so we can cruise through these no mark teams and face some real tough opponents like Otelui Galati ( clearly gonna win the thing this season ).
To be fair it's City's first time in the CL hence the attention. The media made a similar fuss over Spurs last season, remember the orgasms over Bale's hattrick in a game that Spurs lost? For Utd and Chelsea, I think we'll be able to get past any combination of the pot two, three and four teams and win the group comfortably, tho' Milan and Shaktar could be banana skins. I'd be happiest with Lyon / Marseille, Basel and Genk as then we'll avoid any long tiring journeys and the injuries that often result. Arsenal should also qualify for the knock out stages, tho they may need to avoid some of the difficult pot two teams like Milan, Shaktar and Valencia if they are to win the group. City should also qualify, but again are dependent on dodging an experienced European side from pot two. If they get a kind draw, with Porto and Lyon for example, they could well win the group, provided they've learnt the lessons from their last two years in the Europa League.
Winning the group? Haha. Wenger will take the piss with the final 2 games of the group stages like he normally does.
Just out of interest, what does everyone think about the champions league having more champions in? I think it has weakened it in the short term, but in the long term I suppose these clubs in smaller nations will get better very quickly with CL money (they already are probably).
Just like last season, eh? Remind me how that worked out again The group stage has always been pretty weak imo - the money gap between the big clubs and the rest is so large that it takes something special for a big club to fail to get out of the group stages. It's probably better to have more champions from the purist point of view, but from a practical viewpoint it doesn't seem to make much impact on the later stages.
