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The best and worst that Arsenal could get in Champions League draw

After Arsenal survived the pressure and nerves of our hardest Champions League play-off encounter ever, with Slaven Bilic and his Besiktas team deserving an honourable mention for pushing us so close, we wait for the groups to be drawn later today.

It is really about time that Arsenal went one better than the first knockout round as well, so we are hoping for more luck than last year which saw us placed in the toughest group of all and then getting the Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich for the second season in a row.

We still have the advantage of being in pot one, but there are still plenty of tough teams in the other three that it would be very handy to avoid. We cannot be drawn with another Premier League club, of course, so let’s have a look at the possibilities.

Pot 1: Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Chelsea, Benfica, Atletico Madrid, Benfica, Porto, Arsenal

Pot 2: Schalke, Dortmund, Juventus, PSG, Shaktar, Basel, Zenit, Man City

Pot 3: Leverkusen, Olympiakos, CSKA Moscow, Liverpool, Ajax, Sporting, Galatasaray, Bilbao

Pot 4: Anderlecht, Roma, Apoel, Bate, Ludogorets, Maribor, Monaco, Malmo

Looking at the fourth group, two names stand out to avoid in Roma and Monaco, while Leverkusen, Bilbao and Galatasaray in the third group could be very hard opponents and everyone will be hoping to get Shaktar, Basel or Zenit from the second group.

So maybe the best we could hope for would be Arsenal, Shaktar, Olympiakos and Ludogorets. Knowing our luck, however, it is more likely to be Arsenal, PSG, Leverkusen and Roma. Fingers crossed Gooners.

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53 Comments

    3. Mick. No good praying mate, we WILL get the Group of DEATH again, nailed on cert, we always do.
      Olympiacos though maybe, as Napoli got booted out last night, and we ALWAYS draw one of them.
      Dortmund for sure, again, and bets on Roma out of pot 4.
      Chelsea WILL, of course get a bye, as usual.
      I,m sure this is akin to the WC bidding, you know, brown paper envelopes passed around, holidays and luxury cars, for some very good news.
      Lets keep our digits crossed, but, I,m not hopeful.
      The officials tried their best to stop us getting in the groups, 2 red cards, so, fear the worst.

    4. No matter what we need to be 1st in our group.Our players need to give their every bit whether be it “Group of Death or Life”.

  3. if we are in to win it then it dose not mater who we have to play as long as we have quality and depth in our squad which at the moment we don’t have, to win it we would need four more players W/C/S, Natural/A/L/W, D/M, C/B, nothing less will do against teams like Real, Barca, and Beyern, we have the core of a great team but not a full team.

    1. Some times you need luck to win these trophies. We better than MAN U last year and they reached the quarter finals because they had weaker teams to deal with.

      2. Then what? let’s say you reach the quarter final then your luck runs out, almost £100,000,000. For the winer at steak not counting new suporters and more sales in kits, if we spend 100million now which we have still left and more then we are almost guaranteed half of it back just from the CL

  4. Does it really matter what kind of group we get? The ultimate goal is to win the CL and you have to beat the best teams to do so, if you can’t beat the best teams then you don’t deserve to win the CL,simple as that really.

    1. as much as i would love arsenal to win CL, we must accept the fact that we are still in the building process and are a couple of players short of being a realistic CL contender…… now if we get a tough group, then we have to use considerable more resources during mid week compared to our other rivals in the league and as a result we will suffer during the weekend… so i will always prefer an easy draw

    2. Except. Get an easy group, win it, easy next round against the weakest second placed, and one or two top seeds get KOd and, you are a long way to getting very close, another good draw and you are almost there.
      Group of death, lose a game, 2nd, get BM, RM and you are struggling, again.
      You do NOT HAVE to beat the best, necessarily, just someone does, as, our FA Cup proved last year. Yes, we beat Spuds, Pool, Everton, but, someone else beat Chelsea Cty, and, we got Hull, in the final.

  5. Hope it’s not another group of death for us, but still thus football whatever group we are gonna be in, Gunners will proceed……..

    1. great matches as they were we need to get top spot! if we somehow get Bayern in the 16 again i will cry…

  8. I think MR AW up stairs and new manager in. And then buy players we need DM CD And a striker

  9. If well prepared and the team strengthened according we should be ready to face any team. But you need a bit of luck plus hard work to win tournaments and I hope lady luck will be on our side this time around and give us a favorable draw. Topping the group should be top priority to avoid last years repeat!!!

    As much as Wenger has done so much for our club and football as a whole, this trophy has eluded him to been called a WC coach and am sure he would want to add that on his CV before his career ends.

    NOW THAT WE HAVE QUALIFIELD WE MUST BE IN IT TO WIN IT AND NOT JUST TO ADD NUMBERS OR FOR THE CASH!!!

  10. Kinda off topic and I know we cant compete spending wise with Oil City but just a little perpective on current squad depth.

    Against Liverpool on Monday the following started from the bench:

    Negredo
    Aguero
    Navas
    Fernandino
    Kolarov
    Natastic
    Milner

    If Shitty is and should be the standard bearer, oh Lord help us.

  11. Trust me this will be the group of death:

    Real Madrid, PSG, Liverpool, Roma

    And I will Laugh.

    Chelsea, Juventus, Leverkusen, Monaco

  12. Looks like we are getting adrien rabiot. Therefore for those who have not seen him play he is like a taller, quicker arteta. Passes the ball well and can attack when needed. Although we would need him to be more defensive and bulk up a little.

  13. Anyone else saw the superb ground cross from the OX that crossed the pitch and found Cazorla? 😀

    There were so many good things about yesterday’s game. If we had a top (repeat 5 times) striker, I think we could have really punished Besiktas on the break yesterday.

  14. It don’t matter about how much you spend on players look at Spain. We do not need to spend 42 mill on a player like MO. Look at him 1 he don’t like the EPL 1 he don’t like London 2 it’s so hard for him in this team at the mo with no pace. We need a very good striker and replace TV ASAP

  15. Did anyone notice, how angry higuain was after Bilbao knocked out Napoli. He was crying too and I’m 99% sure he would join arsenal if we offered a deal

  19. According to the Metro and Sky Italia, Rabiot’s agent and mother landed in London today to finalize Adrien Rabiot’s 11.9 M move to Arsenal.

    If this is true then Wenger completely lost it and he has got to have some kind of weird sex fetish involving him having many young midfielders in his team.

      1. hahaha! That was a mate’s theory on Wenger for a long time and with all these young midfielders who knows? lol i only joke ofcourse but if this report is true, why would we even need Rabiot? We all know what players we need now and bringing up young players have been ineffective for almost 10 years until we won the FA cup last season.

  20. Here is a list of our non association trained first team players

    Debuchy
    Mertesacker
    Koscielny
    Rosicky
    Arteta
    Podolski
    Ozil
    Giroud
    Ospina
    Alexis
    Monreal
    Cazorla
    Flamini
    Sanogo
    Diaby
    Campbell
    Ryo
    Zelalem

    And here is a list of association trained players
    Szczesney
    Gibbs
    Wilshire
    Walcott
    Ramsey
    Chambers
    Martinez
    Coquelin
    Miquel

    So basically we are in a position where we could name all of those on the first list now that giroud is injured and will probably be left out, but we would have to omit one from the bottom list to do so. We must name 8 on the 2nd list at least.

    This is why wenger needs to be looking at association trained players like welbeck and is the reason that coquelin and miquel are still with us. Sure he could leave out zelalem, ryo and diaby from the top list, to make room for the signing of 3 non association trained players, but I can’t see him leaving anyone else out.

  22. Replace TV get world class DM how about the lad Man U are after? Rub there faces in it. Then get a striker end of if this don’t happen we won’t win anything this season.

  23. Id like to get Dortmund in the group. A top quality side, where there is mutual respect between players and managers. I also think it’s a good time to get them because they’ve been kind of weak lately. If we could spank Dortmund in the groups, it would send a message that we mean business.
    Off topic- Im so glad that Rabiot looks like he’s coming to The Emirates. The kid is great. Tall, quick, intelligent, can defend but has the technical ability to start attacks. All he needs to do is hit the gym and bulk up. When he fills out he will be a dangerous midfielder.

    1. They beat Bayern few weeks ago. I’m happy to avoid them. Rabiot is the missing link in this group of players. Just hoping he will also add a striker and central defender. Then we can play for all cups this season.

  24. Arsenal’s Quest for a top, top, CDM

    First choice: “Khedira” Status: Failed
    Second choice: “Carvalho” Status: Failed
    Third choice: “Gustavo” Status: Failed
    Fourth choice: “Rabiot” Status: Pending…
    Fifth choice: “Stick with what you’ve got” Status: Pending…

  25. everyone who thinks rabiot is average is retarted, there is a reason y PSG r furious he didn’t sign a contract extenstion n that’s because worth 3x what we’re paying for him only thing the kid is definitely using us as a stepping stone and his mother is a twat

  26. The bottom line is this, most fans are afraid becuase we truly believe that Arsenal are really onto something this year meaning the right couple of additiions and we are firmly up there challenging especially domestically. However champs league is a differnt kettle of fish & i still think were some way off but that doesnt mean we cant progress further then we have done these last few years a Quarters is definatley within our reach if we only we strengthen that is.

    Bayern buying Alonso today more or less leaves Khederia with no team chasing him Surely a world cup winner,champs league winner, World class midfielder for possibly 20million pounds Will benefit us, Surely????
    Unless he signs a new contract surely we have to bid right?

    Carvalho – Another Beast just what we need 24mill sounds about right the guy is very good and most certainly on way to become World class. if not khedrai why not him

    Remy – Cheap and cheerfull just how wenger likes it 😉

    Rabiot – Seen only youtube videos and yes he looks good but can he perform from the get go thats the question???

    time is of the essence lets all hope Wenger has players in mind already and theres no panic, 2 additions minimum are paramount preferbley a CDM who can also play c.bk & a striker.

  27. prices prices my felow gunners thats is what it will come down to in the next few days dont be surprised if we dont announce the BIG NAME until monday evening/night roughly to schock everyone and make the squad buzz like last year

    this is what we could be looking at price wise

    falcao £50+ million to buy or £20 million to loan
    cavani £50 million + just to buy no loan here i think
    jackson martinez £ 35 million just to buy
    carvalho £ 24 miilion + ? to buy only maybe throw in a few fringe players to make the deal happen quicker
    rabiot £ 11 million could already be becoming a done deal depending on what you believe.
    reus £30 + am thinking something could already be in place but not announced until last day my favourite theory probaly waiting for himto recover from injury and get c/l he has aparently turned down man united approach so maybe he is waiting for someone else to approach “cough wink” or we just throw alot of money at dortmund and sign him anyways
    isco £35 million would be corzola longterm replacement i think maybe next summer as well
    draxler £ 37 million will be next summer i think
    gustavo £27 millon i think he is a clown is he thinks staying in wolfsburg is better than dinning at the top table with the arsenal then he is welkom to stay where he is and dream on wallybrain,
    the greek big papa £ bvb 10 million + inreality bvb want £20million no chance on your bike klopp (to the emerates would be preferable)
    schar £12 million would be great value for his age
    howedes £12million would also be great value for experince and flexibiltiy he would bring
    veltman £10 million would be my wild card c/h
    thauvin £15 million would be my wildcard l/w
    just a bit of read for anyone willing to waste there time to read it LOL
    COYG

  30. Dort, adel and gala, its a good group for arsenal, not too hard of a group to go through from all needed now is the players to fill in the squad and get ready for the final 16. Also we going back to turkey again

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