Juventus headache for City

MONACO — The reaction said it all. “It’s a little bit different this time,” said Brian Marwood, Manchester City’s head of football administration. “We didn’t get Barcelona and we didn’t get Bayern Munich — let’s hope we can get further in the competition. That means we have progressed.”

But in the Champions League draw, City did get Juventus, last season’s finalists, who are rebuilding after the departure of Carlos Tevez; they did get Sevilla, who became the first club to qualify by winning the Europa League and who are coached by the impressive Unai Emery; and they did get Borussia Monchengladbach, a great name in European football — to Liverpool especially — and resurgent in the Bundesliga last season, finishing third.

All this in Group D — D for Death? Not quite — they should progress, as Marwood said — building on an exhilarating start to this season, and with Kevin De Bruyne set to become the latest arrival in a summer of heavy spending. City have the firepower, but how draining will the Premier League be for them?

They will scan those fixtures. But then so will all the clubs. Arsenal, as an example, have a trip to Dinamo Zagreb on Wednesday, Sept 16, followed by a 12.45pm kick-off at Chelsea on the Saturday.

“I’m sure it could have been tougher,” Marwood mused of City’s group. “The club has had great momentum for the last five or six years, and we want to do well. We are ambitious, and that is the ownership and everybody in the football club. Over the years we have made a lot of improvements; this is our fifth consecutive season in the Champions League.”

A fifth consecutive season and yet City have so far failed to go beyond the last 16 — where they have twice been defeated by Barcelona — having previously not got out of their group. Manager Manuel Pellegrini knows that there is a ‘must-do-better’ comment next to his appraisal when it comes to Europe and would have hoped for a kinder draw. Instead that went the way of Manchester United who, like City and Arsenal, were in Pot Two of a rejigged draw in which the seedings changed.

Pot One was the preserve of the holders — Barcelona — and the champions of the seven strongest domestic leagues, with Chelsea taking England’s place.

United would have had an eye on PSV Eindhoven, from whom they signed Memphis Depay in the summer, as their favoured top seeds. They got them, in Group B, along with CSKA Moscow, a return to the city where they won the Champions League in 2008. But then they received a sting in the tail with Wolfsburg, the strongest club in Pot Four.

Still, for manager Louis Van Gaal, there is a return to his native Holland, and to Germany, where he won the league with Bayern Munich, and he will feel more than comfortable with the hand he has been dealt.

Arsenal were not feeling comfortable when they were drawn in Group F with Bayern Munich — for the third time in four years — although that eased a little with Olympiakos and Dynamo Zagreb, even if it does still appear a tricky group. “The draw started ominously, but overall I think we are relatively pleased with how it turned out,” said David Miles, the club secretary. “Bayern have knocked us out twice so it is about time we returned the favour — let’s hope so anyway.

“It has been a stuttering start to the season for us, but we hope we can get back to winning ways against Newcastle at the weekend and settle down before match day in the Champions League in September.”

There is controversy, however, in Arsenal’s group, with the admission of Olympiakos, who were cleared to be included after the Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected an appeal by Panathinaikos over match-fixing allegations.

For Chelsea there is some relative serenity in Group G, with Jose Mourinho facing Porto, where he made his name, along with Dynamo Kiev and Maccabi Tel Aviv, the Israeli champions who are now coached by former Chelsea player Slavisa Jokanovic, who guided Watford to the Premier League last season but left after his £2 million-a-year wage demands were rejected.