United and Arsenal among top seeds for draw
Chelsea's victory over Slovakian side MSK Zilina means they will be one of the eight second-seeded sides in the draw in Monaco at 3pm.
Celtic and Rangers will almost certainly be in the third-seededpot.
The seedings are decided by UEFA's club coefficients, determined by an individual team's performances in European football over the last five years and the displays of other club sides from the same country in the same period.
As top seeds, United and Arsenal will avoid holders AC Milan in the group stage as well as Real Madrid, Deportivo La Coruna, Bayern Munich, Juventus and Lazio.
Despite the seeding there is stillthe possibility of United or Arsenal getting a very tough draw it is possible they could be picked in a group with Inter Milan, Celtic and Real Sociedad.
Chelsea are among a strong set of second seeds including Inter Milan, UEFA Cup winners Porto and French side Lyon.
Final arrangements for the draw for the Champions League will only be made a couple of hours before it actually takes place but it is virtually certain to be the same as in previous years with the 32 clubs into eight groups of four, with each group having one top-seeded club, one second seed, a third seed and a fourth seed. UEFA have scrapped the second group stage and the top two in each group will go into a last-16 knockout with a side who finishes on top of a group paired with another runner-up.
The teams that finish third in a group will drop down into the UEFA Cup.
UEFA coefficient ranking:
Top group: 1 AC Milan (Italy, holders, 97.155), 2 Real Madrid (Spain, 151.769), 3 Manchester United (England, 136.170), 4 Bayern Munich (Germany, 124.566), 5 Lazio (Italy, 106.155), 6 Arsenal (England, 105.170), 7 Juventus (Italy, 100.155), 8 Deportivo La Coruna (Spain, 98.769).
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