By Tony Attwood
Last season, as you will probably remember, Arsenal won all eight of their opening ties in the Champions League, and so gently sailed into the knock-out rounds of the Champions League, which started in January this year.
Now the format continues as before with the list of matches for the first eight games announced. Once again the idea of playing clubs home and away is abandoned in favour of a system in which clubs play eight different teams, with four matches at home and four away.
Here is the Arsenal selection of games
* Real Madrid (H),
* Bayern Munich (A),
* Borussia Dortmund (H),
* Real Betis (A),
* Lille (H),
* Napoli (A),
* Sabah (H),
* Slavia Prague (A)
The first round of games will be played September 8-10, with the first six rounds taking place through to December. The league phase resumes in January with the eighth and final round on January 27.
The top eight teams in the final standings go directly to the round of 16 in March. The next group of teams, then have an extra round to whittle their numbers down. And then after that we have a final array of knockout rounds.
Meanwhile, the teams that finish between 25th and 36th are eliminated.
I don’t think that is a complete guide to the rules, but then I don’t think a complete guide has been published yet, but this is enough to take us through to January – a set of games in which Arsenal won every single fixture last year.
And although that awareness of such an unbeaten run caused us great fun and a lot of boasting last season I am not sure it can be achieved again. If it can it will certainly make Arsenal kings of Europe, whether they win the Champions League or not.
I’ll be back with more once we have the dates etc.