Thursday?s draw for the Champions League group stages threw up some intriguing looking clashes, and for once I can honestly say that I don?t envy Chelsea. Their group with beautiful artists of Barcelona, the cavalier German side Werder Bremen and the rather unknown quantity of Levski Sofia of Bulgaria will not make Jose Mourinho happy (but then, what would?) but it will be an interesting test of his new-look Chelsea team.

The draw was much kinder to United, and a group made up of Gordon Strachan?s Celtic, Danish side FC Copenhagen and our conquerors of last season Benfica does not look too troubling (but then I thought the same of our group last year?)

I would bet that newspapers around the country are preparing their hackneyed ?Battle of Britain? headlines already after we were paired with current Scottish champions Celtic. They won?t provide any surprises for us, though, as we?ve played them twice fairly recently, for Roy Keane?s testimonial and in a pre-season friendly this year. Even though you can?t read too much into the last friendly (which we won 3-0) because both sides were missing several key players (and it was only a friendly) it is hard to see Celtic beating us, despite a squad containing some very talented players and boosted by the recent signing of Dutch striker Jan Venegoor de Hasselink.

Strachan?s side will not be easy to overcome, Polish ?keeper Artur Boruc is an often obdurate opponent and the experienced Neil Lennon a tireless worker in midfield, but I think that overall our side will have too much quality, although our defenders will have to keep an eye on the livewire striker Maciej Zurawski.

Also in our group are Portugal?s Benfica, who ended up knocking us out last year, and I?m certain Fergie and the players will be looking forward to facing them again, eager to make up for embarrassment of last season. Now managed by Fernando Santos following Ronald Koeman?s appointment at PSV, the Portuguese side could well prove our trickiest opponents in the group.

The triumvirate of Simao, Italian winger-cum-forward Fabrizio Miccoli and ageing but still classy midfield schemer Manuel Rui Costa will be relied upon to create chances for the rather erratic striker Nuno Gomes, while the big Brazilian centreback Luisao will look to enhance his growing reputation in Europe. They are not as easy team to beat, as they showed last season, and I would fancy them to qualify from the group along with United.

The final side in Group F are Denmark?s current champions FC Copenhagen. They are considered by many observers to be one of the weakest sides left in the competition, but may not be as bad as many might think. It is worth noting that they beat Dutch giants Ajax to qualify for the group stage - okay, so the current Ajax team is not exactly the greatest in their illustrious history, but the result still ranks as an impressive scalp for the Danes.

Managed by the former Norwegian international Stale Solbakken, they will rely on goals from the Swedish front paring of Fredrik Berglund and former Aston Villa striker Marcus Allback, who will both look to feed on chances supplied by the fleet-footed ex-Chelsea and Birmingham winger Jesper Gronkjaer. The Danish international winger will be eager to prove he still has the ability to play at this level after losing his way somewhat since his Ajax days.

On paper then this looks to be a relatively easy group for us, but as I?ve said before, it looked that way last season too, and we all know how that turned out. I would only hope that the players ? and the manager ? have learnt from that experience. We have no god-given right to get through the group stages, we will have to earn it by playing at our best and not trying to coast through games assuming that just because we?re Manchester United we will progress. I?m confident we can get out of this group in first place, but we?ll have to wait until the competition starts to see if my confidence is born out in our performances. No matter how it goes, the draw has whetted my appetite for the games to come, and I can?t wait for the competition to kick-off in earnest.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 26th, 2006 at 9:33 am and is filed under Manchester United. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.