UEFA Champions League draw creates intriguing groups

As far as the supporters are concerned though, there’s only one outcome in this year’s Champions League campaign…

The Gunners will also find themselves up against Olympiacos and Dinamo Zagreb.

Group D: Juventus, Manchester City, Sevilla, Borussia Monchengladbach.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Manchester United’s Memphis Depay will be playing against his former team mates from PSV Eindhoven.

There was a time, not too long ago, that English teams dominated the Champions League, reaching final after final almost every year.

Juventus are one of the more hard draws that City could have faced but Manuel Pellegrini will be pleased to have avoided the likes of Barcelona and Bayern Munich.

All four Premier League sides will be in the draw, but last season’s champions Chelsea will be in pot 1, while Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United are in pot 2.

Other notable groups include A, where Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain face-off, along with Swedish outfit Malmo and Shakhtar Donetsk of the Ukraine, while champions Barcelona shouldn’t have too much problem progressing from their pool containing Bayer Leverkusen, Roma, BATE Borisov of Belarus. For example, they could draw Bayern, Sevilla and Wolfsburg (who, like Borussia Mönchengladbach, sit dangerously in pot four).

Of course, before we can worry about that, we have to navigate the group stages.

In Group G, Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho faces his old side Porto, with whom he won the Champions League back in 2003/04.

His quest to be the first coach to win Europe’s premier club title with three different clubs – after Porto and Inter Milan in 2010 – starts in a group with Dynamo Kyiv and Maccabi Tel Aviv.

Gent, the third team to be entering uncharted waters, can look forward to trips to Zenit St Petersburg, Valencia and Lyon in Group H.

Di Maria will return to the Bernabeu for the first time since leaving the club to join Man United for one ill-fated season past year in Group A, with his new team-mate Zlatan Ibrahimovic also returning to his native Sweden to face Malmo.