Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Football, Champions League, Manchester City, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Arsenal
Chris Byfield
Topics: Football, Champions League, Manchester City, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Arsenal
A supercomputer has predicted Thursday’s Champions League draw. Here’s how the Premier League sides have fared.
Manchester City will be among the top seeds as competition holders, while Manchester United, Arsenal and Newcastle are England's other representatives for this year's competition.
The Magpies were last in the group stages in 2002-03, and last in European competition a decade ago. Meanwhile it will be Arsenal's first appearance since 2016-17.
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Scottish champions Celtic are also in the draw and could potentially face Mikel Arteta's men, or one of the Manchester teams.
The Champions League draw will see 32 teams divided into eight sets of four. A group cannot contain more than one club from each nation.
Pot 1 features Champions League holders 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.
The other three pots will be ordered by coefficient rankings, determined by clubs’ performances in UEFA club competitions.
United and Arsenal feature in Pot 2, while Newcastle are in Pot 4.
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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.
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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, PSV Eindhoven and Real Sociedad.
Group G is made up of Benfica, Atletico Madrid, Copenhagen and Galatasaray.
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And finally, Group H includes United, up against Serie A winners Napoli, Braga and Young Boys.