We're Back in the Big Time Boys and Girls.
Who strikes genuine fear in each CL pot?
In Pot 1, I think only Real Madrid and Bayern Munich are genuinely deemed most avoidable.
Chelsea, for non-English teams, and Juventus are not unplayable at their best, which makes them, by choice, not wanted but don't think either would be a poor draw.
The other four are simply acceptable to anyone in pots 2 to 4, because Benfica, Monaco, Spartak and Shakhtar are comparably average (is this a negative to the way they do the draw now?)
Pot 2 has a lot of good teams. Both Manchester clubs will be good in the group stages.
Barcelona, Atletico and Sevilla are all in pot 2, and I think most would take Sevilla of the three.
PSG with the likely Mbappe/Neymar combo will probably be a team you'd like to avoid because they are highly unpredictable.
Porto and Dortmund would be the best ties out of the pot.
Pot Three seems to have a lot of very average if regular CL teams. Olympiakos, Anderlecht and Besiktas. They're not teams you hope to avoid comparably to say...
Roma and Basel, who can at least cause an upset, or...
Napoli and Spurs who are both decent teams and would be hoping a good draw from pot 1 would give them a fighting chance to progress.
But I think the team most would genuinely hope to avoid in the pot is ourselves. Not because of the Hoffenheim result, but because even with the window yet to close, we're the most likely to make genuine signings of quality, and we've proven to be able to compete against the very best teams well over Klopps tenure so far.
Pot Four is a mixed bag. Celtic obviously are a difficult tie with the crowd, atmosphere and rivalry with English clubs. Then its pot luck, with CSKA a tricky away tie, Leipzig an unknown European quantity, and a host of average to decent teams unlikely to be aiming much higher than third spot in the group.
So who would we want?
Some will want the killer ties, others will want an easier group stage.
Out of Klopps nightmares I think he'd see Spartak, Dortmund and Maribor, who would be a comfortable group and an easy progression to the last 16.
Out of Klopps dreams (because lets face it, he wants to upset and play the big boys), I think he'd want Bayern, Barcelona and Celtic, or even Madrid, PSG and Leipzig, or maybe a Juventus, Atletico, CSKA Moscow.
