We have heard complaints for years that Arsenal have had an unfair advantage when it comes to the Champions League draw at the start of each season. But that is no longer going to be the case as UEFA have changed the seeding system and from next year the top pot will consist of the champions of the top seven leagues in Europe along with the holders of the trophy.
So unless the Gunners win the Premier League or the European cup this season, we are going to drop down into pot two or even three. This seems fairer to clubs like Man City and Atletico Madrid whose great domestic achievements have not been rewarded, but is it too drastic a change and is it now unfair on Arsenal?
Because Wenger and the players’ amazing feat of qualifying for the competition every year as well as getting out of the group phase is now being diminished. The Frenchman has brushed it off in an Arsenal.com report but it is also clear that he does not think the change by UEFA is fair.
Wenger said, “It just means that the top hat will not be top anymore, and it will not be more difficult to play against a Pot One team than a Pot Three team. I don’t think it will change anything at all.
“It is fair if you consider different criteria than the ones [Uefa] considered until now, which was the result you made in Europe over the last five years.
“Before it was just down to the results you have in Europe, which I found quite logical. But somebody decided otherwise. It is not completely justifiable but we can live with that. For me it is not a big problem.”
What it will mean, though, is that pot one will have clubs like CSKA Moscow and better teams from better leagues like England and Spain will have a harder draw. So is this new system as unfair as the old one?
Not too worried. Pot 1 will have the champions of the top 7 European Leagues. That means there will only be two really tough groups, as we can’t be drawn with the English champions, that leaves the Spanish champions and the German champions. The French & Italians will be difficult, but the others would be easy.
We’d probably end up in Pot 2. That means if we get an easy Pot 1 draw, there won’t really be any difficult teams left in Pots 2 & 3 to really challenge us, and even if we did get say Real Madrid in Pot 1, we’d still be a pretty comfortable second place in the group..
Nothing surprises me when it comes to uefa!
Uefa seems to be smoking some rather “hard stuff” these days with all kinds of rules and regulations!
Wherever pot we are.. We wil never win champion league.. So dont worry about pot
uafa smoking mgo pot
Lets return back to business tomorrow “gunners” at the emirates and beat hull city! Coyg!
Would love an alexis sanchez “hattrick” tomorrow at the emirates! Coyg!
No matter what pot we’re in, it is always gonna be hard to win the ucl for any team. We may have to face tough teams in the end. So it is no diff for me.
how does all this matter when our main objective is to qualify for the CL and get the TV money. Quite frankly a season with out champions league wouldn’t all that bad, its not as if we’re buying world class players to make advancements in the CL campaign.
This system favors us more than the previous one. There will only be 3 teams to worry about in pot 1. In pot 2 we cant play any English team. pot 3 will be tricky though