Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham and Rangers will find out their Champions League group opponents in Thursday's draw at about 1700 BST.

Chelsea, United and the Gunners are in pot one, with Spurs - who beat Young Boys 6-3 on aggregate to qualify on Wednesday - and Rangers in pot three.

Holders Inter Milan are also in Pot One along with Bayern Munich and Barcelona, while Real Madrid are in pot two.

Any one of the five British clubs could be drawn with Real in the group stages.

The English sides cannot play each other before the quarter-finals, but the trio of top seeds could face Scottish champions Rangers in the group stages.

Spurs boss Harry Redknapp hailed a return to the club's glory days after their thumping 4-0 win over Young Boys earned them a first crack at the group stage.

"It is a good night for Tottenham - as a kid I used to come training here and watched the games with Benfica [in the European Cup in the 1961-62 season]," said Redknapp.

"At that time it was amazing to see European football and the way this place was jumping and to bring it back tonight was great for the fans."

Pot four also includes tough teams such as Russian champions Rubin Kazan and Dutch league winners FC Twente.

The rules set by European football body Uefa mean the 32 qualified teams are allocated into eight groups of four teams.

Each group will contain a top seed, plus one club each from the second, third and fourth pots. Each pot is determined by a club's Uefa coefficient.

The Champions League is the most lucrative football competition in the world and the group stages alone are worth over £11m to each club involved.

Last year's winners Inter Milan received almost £40m in prize money.

The first round of group games will take place on Tuesday 14 and Wednesday 15 September, with the final taking place at Wembley on 28 May 2011.

The draw for the group stage of the Europa League also takes place at Monaco's Grimaldi Forum at about 1200 BST on Friday.

Source: bbc.co.uk

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