After the usual montage-tastic guff at UEFA HQ, Arsenal have been drawn in group D against Borussia Dortmund, Galatasaray and Anderlecht in the group stages of the 2014/15 Champions League.
It’s the third time the Gunners have faced the German side. We met last year, of course, winning away and losing at home, but also faced them in 2011/12 (winning one and drawing one), and in 2002/3 when we lost away but won at Highbury.
The only time Arsenal faced Galatasaray in Europe was in the 2000 UEFA Cup final and the less said about that the better, while the only time we’ve the Belgian side is in the 1969/70 season on the way to winning the Fairs Cup (we beat them over two legs in the final!).
It’s the Gunners 17th successive year in Europe’s premiere competition so we’re well versed in the highs and lows of life on the continent.
There was the whole not being able to win at Wembley thing in the late 90s, John Carewing us out in the early noughties, the Invincibles’ disastrous exit at the hands of Chelsea in 2004, a marvellous run to the final in 2006, that Gibbs slip versus United, an epic win over Barcelona, crushing defeats in the Nou Camp, a nearly miraculous comeback vs AC Milan and then two consecutive years getting dumped out by Bayern Munich – a bit of everything, except our hands on the jug-eared trophy.
Maybe this year!
BVB had to be there. Manageable group.
I hear reports of a Falcao loan deal … would be wonderful wouldn’t it?
A beatable group I would say. Dortmund have been much weakened from the force they once were. Top the group.
Much weakened? Lewandowski was a loss, for sure, but they still have the likes of Hummels, Reus, Gundogan, Subotic, Grosskreutz, and Sven Bender. An excellent team.
Bender coming back from a serious injury, Reus coming back from an injury. Lewandowski alone is a gigantic loss for them.
An excellent team, but not quite as good as in previous years. They’ve lost several key players recently, one of many similarities they (used to) have with Arsenal. I like them as a club.
Such a ‘gigantic’ loss for them that they beat Bayern Munich in the German Super Cup.
Bender is already back from injury, and Reus will be soon. More than enough time to be fit and ready by the time we play them.
Don’t underestimate how strong they are.
You are really going to count the Super Cup, which is the German’s version of the mickey mouse cup. Last year they fell so far that they were a gazillion points off the pace of Bayern. They had the league wrapped up in February or something. On top of that they now lost Lewandowski too. They have two key players coming off the back of injuries which were serious enough to cause them to miss the world cup. If you think that makes “Super Strong” then you are welcome to do os. Also why are you going on and on… Read more »
Not at all. I think we can beat them. I just don’t think they’ve been weakened to the extent many believe. It will be a tough test.
It also has to be mentioned that they replaced Lewandowski with Ciro Immobile, who banged in 22 Serie A goals for Torino last season (out of 33 games). Not too shabby.
Dortmund will be tough to beat. Apart from PSG, they are the strongest of the pot 2 clubs.
Don’t forget additions of Ramos and Immobile, with the option to play Aubameyang up front as well. Not to mention what remains of the Polish sector in Blaszczykowski and Piszczek. Dortmund may have lost Lewandowski but I think they’ve strengthened their squad adequately and we should be wary of the threat they possess.
You don’t actually think Arsene is going to authorize 20 million pounds just for a loan signing.
20 millions to have Falcao on loan for the season(fee+wages). I don’t think Wenger’s gonna pay that much money for a player who will leave after the end of the season.
We have Sanches, wait till he starts taking shots, we haven’t seen the bast of him yet. We’ve seen him doing other people’s jobs thus far, first he came in and gave us his interpretation of what we’ve been missing in Wali, then he did a job filling in for Giroud- even won high balls and what not.
He’s far more mobile and has shown he can take on three players in tight positions. So forget about Falcao.
We will also have Wali doing Wali again. Relax..
Not sure how I feel about “Wali”
Not important but just sayin’ 😐
Except for the trip to Turkey, very good travel distances too. Wenger will like that.
I was just happy to avoid traveling to Ukraine and Russia, both because of the distance, and because of the volatile political situation. Turkey is our only long trip. Germany and Belgium are lovely.
A classy group. Really looking forward to the games.
I have to laugh every time I see someone say London to Istanbul is a long flight! It’s barely half the distance from Vancouver to Toronto, and the ice hockey teams here play 82 games in a season, not 38.
Honestly, I could care less whether more, physically, is required of hockey players than football players. Probably someone could sit around and debate whether a total ice time of around 20 minutes per game (less if you’re on the team’s shit lines) should explain why, perhaps, there are more games in the NHL season than in your average football season. Probably. But, like I said, my only concern is what happens in football, and in football, what’s considered a ‘long’ flight, or a ‘long’ season is relative to…surprise…the competition itself.
i am quite excited to see us play bvb. last year they gave us two very good matches. but i dont know how good they will be this time, after losing gotze and lewandowski
Goetze had already transferred to Bayern Munich, when we played Dortmund last season.
Am I the only one thanking Jesus (or Welsh Jesus) that Gala don’t have Drogba any longer?
Do you do black majic?
Need to start saving for a trip to Dortmund.
Fix!
Tough group. Can’t afford to drop points at home in any of the matches.
We’ll take em all! but seriously can we make it easier on ourselves for once this season?? pleeease
Yeah, and can we learn to score some away goals after winning all our home games, this thing of loosing heavily at home and winning awy but stll getting knocked out is romantic, but shit heart-breaking. Lets get through to the quarters for a change. Lets get to the finals, and beat the guys who we used to loose against who’ve then gone on to win the CL.
We’ve lost against eventual winners, for quite a few years straight now. Tragic, yet boring to say the least.
And any hope of signing Reus has gone out the window…
Not a horrible draw though – very winnable group.
Any hope? What’s less than zero?
Hoping it won’t stop us getting Sokratis Papastathopoulos from Dortmund. Looks an good player.
10/10 for spelling Sokratis’ surname.
0/10 for not rewriting such an awesome name.
Papastathopoulos
I fucking hate Chelsea, yet again they get an easy draw!
Typical Chelsea, Manure have it worse though
UCL GROUP OF DEATH
1 Manchester united
2 Swansea
3 Sunderland
4 MK dons.
Hoe fucking typical that we’d again draw dortmund! well u know what? have reus signed by midnight.
Same old villains I see. No finishing second this time boys!
Draw just over and this was posted 60 mins ago?
Who are our new signings News Hound?
Go for the 1st place !!!
Let’s thank Alexis and his £25m goal last night
I love playing Dortmund. And I hate playing Dortmund. Tough group, but I would think we are favorites to progress.
Expect Galatasaray fans to invade our Facebook page now.
I remember the Belgian’s national team facebook page being invaded by Algerians when we played them at the WC. What’s up with those countries? 😀
And we just got rid of the Besiktas fans too…
The bald headed cunt hates the Arsenal. I’m sure about it.
Dortmund again? Christ. At least they are without Lewandowski. Gala will be tricky but very doable. Anderlecht will the pushovers. We really need 1st place this year. Tired of Barca and Bayern.
We got this.
How I wish we could win this. If fucking Chelsea won it with that team then why the FUCK NOT?
Come on WENGA!
Not sure Arsene would ever countenance playing how those filthy …(ugh, god i hate them!).. did when they won it.
For a second there I thought Chelsea might actually get a less preferable team in Roma but no… Maribor… Fucking Maribor.
Chelsea, Schalke, Sporting Lisbon, Maribor.
Get fucked Chelsea.
As soon as I saw Maribor being picked up I said Chelsea out loud, then laughed hysterically when I got it right. It’s so damn predictable. They always get an easy draw.
Let’s hope for Maribor to give Ole Moo a good one up the keister!
That would be hilarious!
Last season we beat Dortmund in the Westfalenstadion, and our reward was Bayern Munich in the next round. Meanwhile Chelsea lost to Basel… TWICE! And got Galatasaray. The cunting fucking cunts.
We should top this group comfortably if we play our cards right. Last thing we need is to drop stupid points somewhere thinking we’ve already qualified and give Dortmund the initiative.
Otherwise it will be Barcalona/Bayern all over again… Would be nice to get out of the last 16 again.
I actually had 3 out of 4 right: Arsenal, Dortmund and Galatasaray. We always get a shit draw. We avoided Monaco/Roma though, so it could’ve been worse. However, winning this group will be tough, no doubt about it, so we need to be 100% in every match. Let’s get to it!
Hard to get Arsenal wrong …
Well played Arsepedant!
I see Chelsea’s dirty Russian blood money has brought them yet another easy draw. Cunts!!!
How about lobbying Obama to put Chelsea Football Club into the US government sanction list. Chelsea is obviously a money laundering vehicle for Abramovich and a couple of other Russian oligarchs.
Bittersweet let’s top this group#CoyG#
Which side will Reus play on? 😉
The side which colours are the one of your emoticon.
Oh so you mean he’ll be wearing our away colors? 😛
He usually plays on the left side.
Though Wenger may play him through the centre if he signs for us.
Chill
Rambo’s got this
HI EBOUE!!!!
I think we should concentrate on Galatasary’s right wing
We are going to win this year. Here is the reason. My birthday is May 17th We reached our first champions league final on the 17th of May. We just won a major trophy (F.A cup) on the 17th of May, and this is the 17th time in a row we have made it into the champions league. Like seriously, I even lost my virginity at 17 years of age ( not proud..). We are going to win this champions league. Believe my fellow gunners, I am asking you to believe.
And my cock is 17 inches long and Alexis wears 17. It’s guaranteed.
Sanchez is also number 17
Yet another tough group. Bonus might push him to blow dust off the chequebook and grab a couple of signings. Should go through probably with Dortmund hopefully top of the group this time!
BVB is a pretty tough opposition, pursuing a similar style to Arsenal, and daresay it, marred by similar injury woes (Gündogan, and over the summer Reus). This will provide a stern test for our abilities to go all the way in Europe. With the CL being unpredictable et al, it’d be terrific to finish first in the group and avoid the big guns until the quarter finals 😉
That for me is the key, finishing first. It’s not going to be a cake walk, none of these teams are sub standard, but I’ll wear nothing but taped on ice cream cones to work (will donate to the needy after *would have to be very needy indeed) to get through the group first and get a favourable draw for once in the 2nd round.
Really didn’t want Dortmund again. Another trip to Turkey is also something we could’ve done without. I hate playing those teams even though we do have an impeccable record against them in the Champions League. Andrelecht are the more difficult of the Swedish sides but at least we didn’t get Roma or Monaco. That would have been a pain. Typical Chelsea getting the easy draw. City got fucked over again (Ha!) and Liverpool, other than Real Madrid, also got a pretty easy group. I still expect us to get through this group but whether we top it will depend on… Read more »
I’m happy we got Anderlecht for the trip to Sweden. We might have got Malmo and had to travel to Belgium.
Oh yeh, Belgium. Getting mixed up! Thanks… how embarrassing.
What makes it worse is that I was in Belgium, near Anderlecht just recently.
Shush you’re confusing me 😉
You’re funny, deadpan play-along!
With such a draw, I hope we realize we cant rely solely on Sanchez/Sanogo up front through the group stages. Yes I know they are capable of doing it, along with Walcott, but with 4 different competitions, it might not be enough to top the group which is crucial as we’ve seen in the past. That said, we need to sign another striker at least for depth reasons. CB and CDM still needed as well but moreso the defender.
Given our group stage we definitely need some kind of striker who can equal or better Giroud after picking up a CB. What do people make of trying for Mario Gomez? Big man with a powerful aerial game, knows how to play alongside Ozil, has often played in a variant of the 442 with Podolski and apparently is desperate to reclaim his Germany spot. Given that since Arsene was bitten by a radioactive spider he has gained the amazing power to rehabilitate German internationals it could be worth a gamble.
Or maybe I’m just mad, that’s a real possibility too.
Difficult, but not too hard. We should be getting out of that group. Have the chavs ever had a hard group? And the mugsmashers, yes they’ll get torn to bloody ribbons by RM but if they don’t finish second then they don’t deserve to be in the competition. Ah well, at least $hitteh are fucked!
Not the easiest group but it could have been worse. We should be able to top this lot. I can’t believe how easy a group Chel$ki got! Moronho will be creaming himself. They could win all six matches with their COC team.
Poxy chavs so so so hammy!!!
I’ve waited 14 years for revenge on Galatasaray! I’m going for an 8-0 win!
I was there… as a Galatasaray fan, actually. I was obviously thrilled with the result, given my allegiances, but it was also the start of what has become an obsession with Arsenal. I’m a bit conflicted about this draw, but realistic in my expectations as well. It would be nice if Galatasaray could make it out of the group with Arsenal, but I don’t see how Arsenal and Dortmund won’t be the two teams to qualify.
tack!!!!,…..who’s running this thing?
I think we and Dortmund are early favourites but Gala are dangerous. They qualified above juve last season. Our main target shd be 9 pts at home. Dortmund, somehow, look weaker than the last two seasons. Lets go boys. Top of the pile shd be our plan A.
Just had a look through the posts earlier and no one predicted the group so none of us win the imaginary prize 🙁
I like that it’s ‘Maybe this year!’ Instead of ‘Maybe this year?’
Punctuation matters!
I think it’s a manageable group and we should be looking to win it! We have made life difficult for ourselves in the past for not winning the group. Win our home games and we’re halfway there! COYG
Why couldn’t we have an easy draw like man united
……oh yh, LMAO!!!
Not too bad of a draw, we should qualify for the next round.
Ideally the CL draw should be held after the transfer window closes, this way teams can’t influence (either positively or negatively) other teams’ chances.
Don’t fancy manc’s group!
We will have to be much better than present.
We still need a Cback and a striker.
Was looking at Subotic as a possibility but Dortmund will not likely sell particularly to us now.
Eeeevery fuuuuuuckin time…….you’d think after qualifying for so many years the football Gods would give us a friggin’ break. I’m still vacuuming up chewed off nail bits and ripped out hair from last year’s CL…..
I for one love the difficult groups, hate the uber difficult round of 16.
Dortmund are not what they used to be, and without their big striker.
I’m just glad we avoided the really bad picks – PSG, Roma, Monaco, etc.
If we’re good enough to actually win it this year, then we SHOULD be able to beat all these teams…no excuses. Oh, & please NO 2nd place finish in the group stage this year. That has been the biggest mistake we have made before.
If we should beat all these teams as you say, it doesn’t matter whether we finish first or second.
And I don’t mind meeting teams with the calibre of Anderlecht all the way to the trophy. We only remember who won the cup, not the teams they played along the way.
Why may be mate… this year for sure.
I watched the 2000 uefa cup final in a bar with me, my united supporting mate and 5 Gala fans who took great delight in robbing it in. Revenge will be Sweet guys. Lets hope Gala fans don’t turn up in north London wanted to settle scores from the Battle of Copenhagan.
That’s good you were with yourself!
To be fair to him, it sounds like he was beside himself because of the result.