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Topics: Football, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Arsenal, Manchester City, Premier League, Champions League
Chris Byfield
Topics: Football, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Arsenal, Manchester City, Premier League, Champions League
A supercomputer has predicted Thursday’s Champions League draw. Here’s how the Premier League sides have fared.
The final six teams in the Champions League group stage will be decided on Tuesday and Wednesday evening, upon the conclusion of the qualification play-offs.
Once the ties are over the Champions League proper begins with the 32 teams qualified for the group stage being divided into eight sets of four. A group cannot contain more than one club from each nation.
As a preface, the Champions League pots are assuming the results of each tie remain as they are, and that Young Boys edge past Maccabi Haifa and Rangers beat PSV.
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Pot 1 has been locked in for months, given it includes Champions League holders Manchester City, the Europa League winners Sevilla, and the champions of UEFA's six highest-ranked nations who have not earned a place by winning either of the aforementioned tournaments.
Indeed the other three pots will be ordered by coefficient rankings, which are determined based on clubs’ performances in UEFA club competitions.
Indeed, United and Arsenal will feature in Pot 2, while Newcastle, who are making their return to European competition for the first time in a decade, will be in Pot 4.
With that in mind here is how the supercomputer predicted the Champions League draw to look.
Group A sees Sevilla get a favourable draw, with Porto, Lazio and Antwerp making up the set.
Group B includes Dutch champions Feyenoord, Real Madrid, Shakhtar Donetsk and Lens.
Group C includes both Arsenal and Bayern Munich, with the former having historically been handed a series of humbling defeats against the Bundesliga champions in the past decade. Salzburg and Celtic make up the group.
Last year’s Champions League finalists City and Inter are in Group D alongside Red Star and Union Berlin.
Group E appears to be a ‘group of death’, with Newcastle having been drawn against Borussia Dortmund, AC Milan and Catalan giants Barcelona.
Group F includes Paris Saint-Germain, RB Leipzig, Rangers and Real Sociedad.
Group G is made up of Benfica, Atletico Madrid, Copenhagen and Galatasaray.
And finally, Group H includes United, up against Serie A winners Napoli, Braga and Young Boys.