Sadly a classic Butland ricket there for Rangers. Thought he'd had a good game before that but unfortunately these days he's always got a big mistake in him. PSV have been better but 5-1 is a bit harsh.
Quick turn over for the draw. Usually seems to be on a Friday a week later or so. Maybe the schedules are tighter.
I assume its because the World Cup meant that last season's Champions League final was played in mid June rather than the end of May, so the qualifying rounds for this season's tournament started later than they usually do. Euro qualifiers next week so UEFA won't want these to be overshadowed.
Draws were often the Friday the same round that the qualifiers were concluded and that was the same for both competitions. They seem to have messed around with the draw schedules in recent seasons. Used to always look forward to this week / Friday though as it'd typically be when the draw was done and could start planning the away trips. Sadly no European exploits this year
Pot 1: Manchester City, Sevilla, Barcelona, Napoli, Bayern Munich, PSG, Benfica, Feyenoord Pot 2: Real Madrid, Manchester United, Inter Milan, Borussia Dortmund, Atletico Madrid, RB Leipzig, Porto, Arsenal Pot 3: Shakhtar Donetsk, RB Salzburg, AC Milan, Braga, PSV Eindhoven, Lazio, Red Star Belgrade, FC Copenhagen Pot 4: Young Boys, Real Sociedad, Galatasaray, Celtic, Newcastle, Union Berlin, Royal Antwerp, Lens Arsenal and Newcastle returning to the competition after long absences will make their fans excited for the draw later. Some good away days in there. A bit envious of some of those pot 4 away trips in particular. Newcastle suffer for having spent so many years outside of Europe. They're going to get a bit of a stinker of a draw although some high profile clubs coming to St James' at least.
No Liverpool No Spurs No HSV (but we have Shakthar who'll play their group matches in HSV's Volkspark ) Union Berlin in their first ever Champions League Campaign. Bet they get ManCity, Real, AC Milan
Yeah there's an excitement just to be back in the competition. Who I get to see at the Emirates hasn't really crossed my mind as I've been in best possible outcome mode for our season. Don't want Barcelona or Bayern mainly. Partly because they're good teams but also our last CL chapter is rife with knockout defeats by those teams. As a best possible draw scenario (level of team and short-ish travelling) Feyenoord/Sevilla, Copenhagen and Celtic/Antwerp. Any side in Pot 1 would be rubbing their hands at that draw. Questions for Arteta. Even at Europa league level, he's got defeats away to the likes of Villarreal, PSV, failing to beat Sporting, Olympiakos. I think getting out the group is achievable and should be the minimum bar. Bookies have us either the outright or joint 4th favourites which feels utterly wild to me.
We've lucked out with Chelsea, Liverpool and Juventus all not qualifying. We'd be in Pot 3 if one of those teams qualified. Edit: Getting ahead of myself, but should we get in again next year, we need to make sure we have a good run this year. We're going to lose our 18/19 coefficient (we made the Europa League final that year) so to make sure we've got a fighting chance of being in pot 2 again, a deep run is needed this year.
Do they do the player awards as well? Surely Ederson best keeper. Dias best defender Rodri best Midfielder Haaland best striker
