Going into the final group games last night, there were still several groups where first and second place were still undecided but now that they are over, we now have some idea of the opponents we could face in the first knock-out round.

It’s still largely up in the air however because of the eight teams, the only one we cannot face is CSKA Moscow (as they were in our Group).

That leaves:-

Bayern Munich, AC Milan, Lyon, Stuttgart, Porto, Inter Milan, Olympiacos.

Some very big names amongst that lot and the chances of us getting an “easy” tie are pretty slim and I can see one or two of the teams who won their groups actually going out in the next round.

As winners of our group, we will be playing our opponents at their place in the first leg and back to Old Trafford in the second leg which is the way we all like it and is the main advantage of winning the group.

Our Champions League campaign this season gives some pause for thought in this regard however because it has actually been our away form that has got us through.

In our first home game against Wolfsburg, we went 1-0 down before eventually scraping through to a 2-1 win, in our second home game, we went 3-1 down against CSKA Moscow before eventually scraping through to a 3-3 draw and in our third home game, we lost 1-0 to Besiktas.

We won all three of our away games.

The draw takes place next Friday (18th December).

Should be interesting…