Champions League Pots Confirmed: Liverpool Face Tough Task As Spurs, Man Utd & City Await Draw

Liverpool are facing a touch task as they – along with Tottenham, Manchester United and Manchester City – prepare for this evening’s Champions League group stage draw.

The four pots were finalised after the final round of qualifying fixtures were concluded last night and unfortunately for Liverpool they’ve been placed in pot 3 after Benfica thrashed PAOK on Wednesday night.

It means the Portuguese giants take the final place in pot 2 leaving Liverpool in the third tier due to their UEFA coefficient ranking and facing the prospect of drawing two European giants in the group stages of the Champions League.

Jurgen Klopp’s men could now be drawn in a nightmare ‘group of death’ along with Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund and Inter Milan while Real Madrid, Napoli and Galatasaray is also a possibility.

Last year’s finalists will therefore be hoping for some good luck in today’s draw and if things go their way they could end up with a favourable group containing Lokomotiov Moscow, Porto and Young Boys.

Manchester City will obviously be in pot 1 as champions of the Premier League so they will avoid the big boys like Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid but they’ll be hoping to avoid a tricky draw that could see them pitted against Dortmund, Monaco and Inter.

Manchester United are in pot 2 along with Tottenham and will therefore face one of the top tier sides but both teams will be praying to be drawn against Lokomotiv Moscow. A nightmare draw for either United or Spurs would see them up against Barcelona, Monaco and Inter but a favourbale draw could see them face Moscow, PSV and Young Boys.

It’s going to be exciting to see what the draw throws-up when it takes place at 5pm UK time later today. Here are the confirmed pots:

Pot 1: Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Manchester City, Juventus, Paris Saint-Germain, Lokomotiv Moscow

Pot 2: Borussia Dortmund, Porto, Manchester United, Shakhtar Donetsk, Benfica, Napoli, Tottenham, Roma

Pot 3: Liverpool, Schalke, Lyon, Monaco, CSKA Moscow, Ajax, PSV Eindhoven, Valencia

Pot 4: Viktoria Plzen, Club Brugge, Galatasaray, Young Boys, Inter Milan, Hoffenheim, Crvena zvezda, AEK Athens