17 December 2023 , 22:20
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Manchester City and Arsenal will discover their next Champions League opponents in Monday’s draw.
City boss Pep Guardiola ’s holders are red-hot favourites with the bookies after their 100 per cent record in the group stage. Arsenal are also among the seeded clubs for the knock-out draw in their first campaign back in Europe’s top competition for seven seasons.
Both will fancy their chances of reaching the quarter finals because the group winners will avoid the other big guns of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Barcelona. City can draw teams from PSV Eindhoven, Napoli, Inter Milan, Lazio, Paris Saint Germain and Porto. While Arsenal cannot get PSV as they were in the same group but could face RB Leipzig who were in the same group as City.
Newcastle and Manchester United both crashed out of Europe so are not in either draw and their early exit could hit the Premier League ’s chances of a fifth place in next season’s new-look Champions League. UEFA will hand out an extra two places to one of the major leagues depending on how their teams fare in Europe.
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The draw will take place at 11am and the extra incentive of winning the group comes with playing the away leg first and the all-important deciding second leg at home. The first legs are set to be played on the midweeks of February 13-14 and 20-21 in 2024 while the second legs are set for March 5-6 and 12-13 in 2024.
The Europa League draw will also take place on TNT Sports on Monday but it will be for the play-off round and will therefore not involve English clubs who won their Groups to qualify for the last 16 knock-out round automatically.
Liverpool, Brighton and West Ham all won their Europa League Groups while Aston Villa also won their Europa League Conference League Group. The draw for the round of 16 will take place on Friday 23 February next year.