As
the draw for the Europa League group stage nears, we run through the vital
details for British clubs.
Arsenal and Chelsea are already guaranteed their spots in the group stages
while Burnley, Celtic and Rangers will join them if they can negotiate their
way through their second leg ties on Thursday.
Rangers lead 1-0 from the first leg at Ibrox against FC Ufa, while Celtic
battled to a 1-1 draw with Lithuanian champions Suduva. Meanwhile, Burnley
lost their first leg play-off 3-1 to Olympiakos, during which defender Ben
Gibson was sent off.
Here, we run through those complicated seeds and pots, and all the key dates
for the Europa League group stage draw....
When is the draw?
On Friday August 31 at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco, with the ceremony
scheduled to start at 12pm.
Who is in the hat?
Already qualified: Arsenal, Chelsea, Bayer Leverkusen, Eintracht Frankfurt,
Villarreal, Real Betis, Lazio, AC Milan, Marseille, Rennes, Anderlecht,
Standard Liege, Sporting Lisbon, Fenerbahce, Akhisar Belediyespor,
Krasnodar, Spartak Moscow, FC Zurich, Vorskla Poltava, Slavia Prague,
Jablonec.
Draw make-up
* 17 teams qualify automatically
* 21 teams advance from the EL play-off round
* 6 teams defeated in UEFA Champions League play-off round
* 4 teams defeated in UEFA Champions League third qualifying round league
path
How does the draw work?
The draw adjudicators will pick 48 teams from the hat and split them into 12
groups of four.
The teams are split into four different pots. Each group will include one
team from each of the four pots.
Pot one will contain the top seeds and pot four the bottom seeds. The
rankings to determine which pot each team go into are based on their club
coefficient ranking.
The pots
Arsenal and Chelsea will be in pot one and won't face each other, while
there is no chance of Rangers and Celtic being drawn together as clubs from
the same country can't be drawn together until the knockout stages.
Pot one also consists of Bundesliga side Bayer Leverkusen, La Liga hotshots
Villarreal, Italian giants Lazio and AC Milan and Sporting Lisbon.
It looks likely that - if they qualify - Celtic will be in pot one, too -
they have a coefficient rating of 31.000, which makes them the ninth highest
rated team in the competition.
However, with six more teams dropping out of the Champions League final
qualifying round to enter the Europa League, Celtic's position as one of the
top 12 ranked teams could be under threat, especially if Dynamo Kiev,
Benfica and PSV are in the draw.
The make-up of pots two, three and four will depend on the play-off round
second leg results. With a current coefficient rating of just 3.725, it
looks certain that Rangers will be in pot three or four if they see off FC
Ufa.
That does leave the door open for Steven Gerrard's men potentially facing
either Arsenal or Chelsea in the group stages.
Key dates
The group stages get going on 20 September and the first stage of six
matches lasts until mid-December.
Matchday 1: September 20
Matchday 2: October 4
Matchday 3: October 25
Matchday 4: November 8
Matchday 5: November 29
Matchday 6: December 13
Round of 16, first leg: March 7
Round of 16, second leg: March 14
Quarter-final, first leg: April 11
Quarter-final, second leg: April 18
Semi-final, first leg: May 2
Semi-final, second leg: May 9
Final: May 29
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