Man City's best and worst Champions League group scenarios as opponents confirmed before draw

Manchester City are set to discover their Champions League group stage opponents for the coming season, with some potentially difficult ties awaiting them.

As Premier League champions, City are top seeds and will therefore avoid the Champions League holders Real Madrid, Europa League winners Eintracht Frankfurt and champions of Italy, Germany, France, Portugal and the Netherlands. However, they could still be paired with the likes of Barcelona, Juventus, Atletico Madrid, Borussia Dortmund and Inter Milan as they look to improve on final and semi-final defeats in the last two seasons.

Alternatively, the seedings for the draw present some potentially simpler opponents, which could prove useful given the congested fixture list this season due to the World Cup in November.

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Rather than being played every two or three weeks between September and December, this year's group stage fixtures will be played in three back-to-back midweek groups between September and November - directly before or after some testing Premier League fixtures against Tottenham, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal.

A look at the group seedings shows that City will definitely avoid Real Madrid, Frankfurt, AC Milan, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain, Porto and Ajax from Pot One, along with Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham in Pot Two as teams from the same association cannot meet until the quarter-final stage.

From Pot Two, that leaves possible pairings with Barcelona, Juventus, Atletico, Sevilla, and RB Leipzig. There are no restrictions in Pot Three for City, so they could face any of Dortmund, RB Salzburg, Shakhtar Donetsk, Inter Milan, Napoli, Benfica, Sporting or Bayer