Thought I'd start a thread for this, seeing as it is today (16:45). Who are you hoping we play? Who are you hoping we avoid? Pot 1 AC Milan Arsenal Barcelona Bayern Munich Chelsea Manchester United Porto Real Madrid Pot 2 Benfica Braga Dynamo Kiev Manchester City Schalke Shaktar Donetsk Valencia Zenit St. Petersburg Pot 3 Anderlecht Ajax Galatasaray Juventus Lille Paris St-Germain Olympiacos Spartak Moscow Pot 4 BATE Borisov Borussia Dortmund Celtic CFR Cluj Dinamo Zagreb Malaga Montpellier Nordsjaelland Just a reminder, 1 team from each pot goes into each group, and we can't be drawn in a group with any English teams. My dream group would be: Arsenal, Dynamo Kiev, Anderlecht, Nordsjaelland Worst nightmare: Arsenal, Valencia, Paris St-Germain, Borussia Dortmund How about you guys?
We'll almost certainly get either Juventus or PSG from pot 3. If we get Monpellier Giroud will score against them. Chelsea will get their usual free pass to the next round
Schalke, Anderlecht and Celtic would be an awesome group. Valencia, PSG and Dortmund would be a nightmare group.
Our last few groups: 2011/12 - Bayer Leverkusen, Valencia, Genk 2010/11 - Marseille, Spartak Moscow, Zilina 2009/10 - Porto, Athletico Madrid, APOEL 2008/09 - Roma, Bordeaux, Cluj How exactly do we have a 'usual free pass' ??
They're hardly free passes either You should really look at your own groups over the years before commenting: With exception of last year granted, your groups have been easier than ours in the past. (2011/12 - Marseille, Dortmund, Olympiacos) 2010/11 - Shakhtar, Braga, Partizan 2009/10 - Olympiacos, Standard, AZ 2008/09 - Porto, Kiev, Fenerbache
Getting Celtic would not be considered a good draw in my opinion, they always raise their game against English sides and have given man U trouble in the past. Parkhead had the best atmosphere of any CL ground I have seen, if the home side get off to a good start it can be a nightmare.
The difference is that however easy our group looks, we make it difficult for ourselves with garbage away performances. If Chelsea get an easy group they breeze through
Now I won't argue there, but the way he said it was as if it's all fixed to give Arsenal tough opponents...
I hope there will come a time where I can say 'what teams want to avoid us' rather than 'what teams should we avoid'. I doubt that timewill ever come though.
