Ok so tomorrow (Thursday) at 4:45 is the champions league group stage draw. The seeding is as follows: Pot 1 Real Madrid Bayern Munich Barcelona Chelsea Benfica Atlectico Madrid Arsenal Porto Pot 2 Shalke Dortmund Juventus PSG Shakhtar Basel Zenit Man city Pot 3 Leverkusen Olympiakos Cska moscow Ajax Liverpool Sporting Galatasaray Athletic Bilbao Pot 4 Anderlecht Roma Apoel Bate Maribor Monaco Malmo Ludogorets / steaua So I'm thinking it looks like the worst group we could end up with is something like: Arsenal PSG Galatasaray Roma Or Arsenal Juventus Ajax Monaco With our easiest possibility looking like: Arsenal Basel Olympiakos Malmo Or Arsenal Zenit Sporting Maribor Which teams do you want to avoid? Which teams do you want us to get? After last years very strong group I'm hoping this year we have something a little more straight forward so it doesn't take too much out of our players. It'd be nice to top the group and get a decent last 16 draw as well!
I'd like Arsenal, Basel, Ajax, and any one of Bate, Apoel, Marabor, Malmo. I think we will get: Shalke Ajax Bate Some tricky ties. A really really bad group would be: Arsenal Dortmund Roma Bilbao
Bilbao and Roma are no slacks, especially Bilbao away, heck both of these teams away will be very tough.
I agree, but I think provided we dont have one of PSG, juventus or Dortmund pushing us close then we can handle having the odd difficult game.
I'm amazed that two Portuguese teams are in Pot 1.It just show how taking the Europa League seriously improves your country's co-efficient
Maybe but look at the alternatives in pot 4, I know I'd rather be playing master bate Borisov or Apoel
The team you really dont want from pot 3 is Leverkusen, they have not shown their quality in Europe in recent seasons, failing to bring their German form to the table but this is a young Leverkusen team who are going places, I expect a much better showing from them in the Champions League this time. Dortmund are lightyears from the team who not long ago were arguably the best in Europe for a couple of seasons, if you think Arsenal have it bad with injuries, spare a thought for Dortmund who have had horrendous luck on that front over the last year, added to losing two of their top players to Bayern. It will take time and im sure Klopp will get them back as they still have some of the best players in Europe but I dont see them going far in Europe this year, maybe they can hit form second half of the season in the League and give Bayern a run if they are not too far ahead by then. Leverkusen at 150/1 is worth a couple of quid
