Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal face testing Champions League group stage draw

Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City face the prospect of challenging draws for the Champions League group phase after the pots were confirmed for next year's top tier continental competition following the climax to the European club season.

From the 2015-16 season onwards domestic title winners from the top seven country coefficients are automatically inserted into pot one, including the holders.

If the holders, in this case Barcelona, are already in pot one having won their championship then the eighth team in the standings takes the remaining place.

Manchester City, Borussia Dortmund and Paris Saint-Germain have all missed out on being seeded for the draw due in previous seasons to their Uefa coefficient despite being champions while despite having not won the league title since 2004 Arsenal have been a regular member of pot one.

But in pot one for the draw in Monaco on 27 August will be Barcelona, Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Juventus, Benfica, Paris Saint-Germain, Zenit Saint Petersburg and PSV Eindhoven.

However, with Uefa having separated the domestic title winners from the remaining three pots, which are determined by the old system of coefficient rankings, a series of European heavyweights lie in weight in pot two.

Ten-time winners Real Madrid, 2014 finalists Atletico Madrid, Portuguese giants FC Porto and Premier League pair Arsenal and Manchester City are all confirmed entrants into pot two. Manchester United, Valencia and Bayer Leverkusen will fill the remaining three places if they qualify via the playoffs.

Shakhtar Donetsk, Sevilla and Olympique Lyon lie in wait should any of the aforementioned trio miss out, but they will at the very least bolster pot three ahead of the most evenly-weighted Champions League draw in recent memory.

Teams from the same country are kept apart in the group stage draw, meaning Chelsea are guaranteed to be paired with Real, Atletico, Porto, Valencia or Leverkusen, should the latter two qualify.

Arsenal, City and United should they progress meanwhile could face Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Juventus, Benfica, PSG, Zenit or PSV, with their chances of being handed a far more presentable draw better than those of champions Chelsea.

The likes of Shakhtar, Sevilla, Roma and Ajax lie in wait for the English quartet in the final two pots meaning their route into the knock-out stages looks worryingly hazardous.