Arsenal had a 2 in 3 chance of drawing an Italian club, with all 4 of them in the second group of seeds together with Liverpool and Chelsea (who we couldn't draw cos they're from the same country). But we avoided that and got Panathinaikos instead. Whether that's an easier draw than eg Roma is open for debate. After last year's rollercoaster of a group stage (since it just went down and then up it was some other kind of fairground ride I guess, but I can't think what), anything is open for debate. The 2nd pot also included Milan, Inter, Juve, and Olympique Lyonnais.

From the 3rd pot we drew PSV, not the easiest perhaps but that was a ridiculously strong set of 3rd seeds containing Bayer Leverkusen, Celtic, Sparta Prague, Ajax, and PSG.

And a real result in the 4th pot to draw Rosenborg. Not because they'll be easy (there are no easy games, not even for Arsenal, as will be said many times this campaign), but because they involve the least travelling (that pot included teams from Russia, Israel, Turkey, Greece, and 2 from the Ukraine!).

So, in case you didn't catch all that, Arsenal's group is:

Arsenal
Panathinaikos
PSV Eindhoven
Rosenborg

See Champs League page or Arseweb Calendar for fixtures. Arsenal start at home to PSV on Sept 14th, and finish at home to Rosenborg on December 7th.

Other interesting points from the full draw include, errrr, Chelsea being drawn against Mourinho's former club (and champions) Porto. Celtic have a nightmare with both Barca and Milan. Amazingly, Juve and Bayren Munich face each other for the first time ever. That's about it, really.