Manchester City to face Real Madrid in Champions League playoff; transfer news: football – live

And here’s a reminder of those Champions League matches we have to look forward to.

The Europa League draw in full

The first few ties:

Ferencvaros v Viktoria Plzen

Porta v Roma

AZ Alkmaar v Galatasaray

And a reminder of the teams in the draw, which will be performed by Aritz Aduriz, the former Athletic Bilbao striker.

Seeded teams
9. Bodø/Glimt
10. Anderlecht
11. FCSB
12. Ajax
13. Real Sociedad
14. Galatasaray
15. Roma
16. Viktoria Plzen

Unseeded teams
17. Ferencvaros
18. Porto
19. AZ Alkmaar
20. Midtjylland
21. Union SG
22. PAOK (GRE)
23. Twente
24. Fenerbahce

Thanks Simon and hello all! Before this draw begins, a quick reminder as to how it works. It is very similar to the Champions League.

From the knockout phase play-offs onwards, the tournament is a bracket. The teams that finished the league phase between ninth and 16th will be seeded for the first draw of the knockout phase, and will face a team placed 17th to 24th. The seeded team will, in principle, play the return leg at home.

Potential opponents are also pre-defined by pairings of teams’ final league positions. For example, teams finishing ninth and tenth will face the sides that ended 23rd or 24th; teams finishing 11th or 12th will be drawn against either the 21st or 22nd-placed sides and so on.

The eight clubs that prevail in the knockout phase play-offs progress to the round of 16.

With that I’m going to hand over to Yara El-Shaboury, who will take you through the Europa League draw and whatever the next chunk of Friday has in store for us. Bye for now!

Plymouth have broken their transfer record this morning by signing the Ukraine international defender Maksym Talovierov. The 24-year-old, who has joined from Austrian club LASK, has signed a three-and-a-half year contract. Plymouth did not disclose the size of the transfer fee but it is understood to be in excess of £1.5m.

Plymouth head coach Miron Muslic said: “I have been open since I joined Argyle that we would be patient to bring in the right players who could help the team. In Maksym we feel we have done just that as he is a commanding presence who will add height and physicality to the side, but he is also good on the ball and technically good.”

Talovierov will be available for selection for Saturday lunchtime’s clash with West Brom, subject to EFL approval and international clearance.

The Europa League draw is just a few minutes away. TNT Sports are broadcasting it in the UK, and on their YouTube channel here:

The teams in the hat: Ajax, Anderlecht, AZ Alkmaar, Bodø/Glimt, FCSB, Fenerbahçe, Ferencvaros, Galatasaray, Midtjylland, PAOK, Porto, Real Sociedad, Roma, Twente, Union SG, Viktoria Plzen.

Ben McAleer from WhoScored has taken a look at Jacob Murphy, the (relatively) underappreciated member of Newcastle’s scalpel-sharp attacking trident:

Newcastle’s 4-1 defeat by Bournemouth was an exception rather than the rule. Since mid-December, Newcastle have been imperious in the Premier League. They have won seven of their past eight games and bounced back from that Bournemouth game by beating another south-coast side, Southampton, to climb to fifth.

Eddie Howe’ team, who trail fourth-placed Manchester City on goal difference, will fancy their chances of another victory when Fulham visit on Saturday. Very few defences can handle the Newcastle attack at the minute. Alexander Isak has been sensational this season, scoring 17 goals in the Premier League – only Mohamed Salah (19) and Erling Haaland (18) have more. Anthony Gordon has directly contributed to a goal in 10 of his past 11 Newcastle outings. The pair deserve immense credit, but so does the third member of the scalpel-sharp trident.

Much more here:

Obviously I initially said teams would progress from the playoffs into the quarter-finals, which isn’t a thing. They’ll go into the round of 16.

A date for the diary: The draw to determine the round of 16 and with it the remainder of the knockout rounds will be held on 21 February.

The Champions League draw in full!

It’s Real Madrid v Manchester City! And Bayern v Celtic

OK, this is happening! The first ties:

Paris Saint-Germain v Brest
Benfica v Monaco
The winners of these ties play Liverpool or Barcelona in the round of 16

PSV Eindhoven v Juventus
Milan v Feyenoord
The winners of these ties will play either Arsenal or Internazionale

I don’t want to short-change you, but I’m not going to bother with the rest of the silver/blue business. I’ll be back when they start completing ties.

The first draw has been made! And it has sensationally thrown Brugge into the silver side, and Sporting in the blue.

In their infinite wisdom Uefa are going to draw all the unseeded teams followed by all the seeded teams. In other words, they’ll draw half of all the ties followed by the other half of all the ties, meaning it’ll be a while before any actual pairings are confirmed.

Uefa are still preambling. I have learned that one side of the draw will be silver and the other side will be blue.

Uefa are going big on the preambles here, so I’ve got time to remind you of the basic rules. There are eight seeded teams and eight unseeded teams. The two seeded teams with the highest league finish will be drawn against the two unseeded teams with the lowest league finish and so on, until everyone’s paired up. So Atalanta will play Sporting or Brugge, and Borussia Dortmund will play the other one, while PSG will play Monaco or Brest and Benfica will get the other one. You can play teams from your own country, and teams you played in the group. Got it? Great.

Seeded teams
9. Atalanta
10. Borussia Dortmund
11. Real Madrid
12. Bayern Munich
13. Milan
14. PSV Eindhoven
15. Paris Saint-Germain
16. Benfica

Unseeded teams
17. Monaco
18. Brest
19. Feyenoord
20. Juventus
21. Celtic
22. Manchester City
23. Sporting CP
24. Club Brugge

Here’s the final Champions League group stage megatable:

Brace yourself for the Champions League draw, which starts in just a few minutes. Today’s draws will be broadcast live in the UK by TNT Sports and on their YouTube channel, here:

And here is a healthy dollop of further transfer gossip:

Here’s more on the future of Evan Ferguson, with Chelsea joining a six-way race for his services as we go into the final weekend of the transfer window:

The Brighton manager, Fabian Hurzeler, has said that the reason he has been limiting the playing time of the club’s record signing, Georginio Rutter, is that he has “issues with his muscles” that means “we have to protect his health”.

Rutter has played only two full games since signing for the club from Leeds for £40m last August, and has played more than 45 minutes only once since Christmas, against Norwich in the FA Cup.

“There have been some small issues with his muscles and therefore we also need to protect his health,” Hurzeler said ahead of Saturday’s trip to Nottingham Forest. “I know that it is not always understandable why we choose the starting XI, but there are so many things going on.

“The main thing for me is that I am responsible for the person behind the player, to protect him and protect his health. It’s not only a decision about performance, especially when young players get injured.”

Chelsea join race for Brighton’s Evan Ferguson

Champions League and Europa League draws will be happening over the next couple of hours: the Champions League goes first, at 12pm CET/11am GMT, with the Europa League an hour later.

In short the teams that finished between ninth and 16th in both league stages will be seeded, and those that finished between 17th and 24th will be unseeded. In each pairing the unseeded team will, unless there’s a good reason not to, play the second leg at home. So far, so straightforward.

Beyond that, and to add a bonus level of complication, sides have been paired for the draw. So the ninth and 10th-placed teams can only play either the 23rd or the 24th-placed teams, and so on until 15th and 16th play 17th and 18th.

Then in the round of 16 the teams that progressed directly from the group in first and second place will face the winners of those 15th/16th/17th/18th playoffs and so on from there, until the teams that finished seventh and eighth play the winners of the ninth/10th/23rd/24th playoffs. In each of these pairs, one will go into the top half of the draw and one into the bottom.

All clear? Good.

Hello world!