I dunno. Can you have a "potential banana skin"? Isn't the potential bound up in the banana skin itself? I mean, it's not like you have to step on a banana skin in the first place. And while we're at it, have you ever seen anyone slip on a banana skin outside a cartoon or Mario Kart 64?
Donncha Ó Conmhuí: "Group E features two of only five teams from European capital cities to win the thing outright. I think you'll find that highly relevant to any prediction of the eventual champions. Somehow."
17.46 Goodness, Rio Ferdinand stopped a fashion shoot to watch the draw. What sort of businessman does that make him?
17.45 Here's Henry Winter's snap, 140-character verdict:
Richard Hodge: "With that draw I think Chelsea must fancy their chances at a Premier League and European double."
Tony Hood: "There goes Arsenal's consistency! Napoli and Dortmund through there I feel."
Another point. What if Wenger's been trying to buy Gundogan or someone? Would Dortmund sell them a player now?
Sean McManus writes: "Manchester City may as well throw in the towel now." They probably won't, though.
17.41 The draw is completed with Austria Vienna going into Porto's group. That's the final option on Sky Sports 4's red button if ever I saw one.
17.40 Which means City will get either Austria Vienna or Viktoria Plzen. The Czech side are the latest side out of the hat... and they go into City's group.
17.39 Copenhagen... go into Group B with Real and Juventus.
17.38 Steaua Bucharest, the 1986 winners. They go into Chelsea's group.
17.37 Here come Celtic... and it's Group H! Four former winners in that group, and three of them with a chance of qualifying...
17.36 Anderlecht into Group C.
17.35 Real Sociedad can either go into groups A, C or D. It's A. They're in United's group. Carlos Vela's return to English football, as absolutely nobody will be dubbing it.
17.34 Napoli! The one landmine in Pot D! A 67% chance they get an English team! And they do! it's Arsenal!
17.33 Paolo Sousa is the last VIP on stage. Yep, the man currently carrying out the Champions League draw is a man who once signed Dexter Blackstock. Not that he knew much about it.
Paul Kilgarriff: "The draw is probably more exciting than the group stages themselves."
17.31 And the eagle-eyed amongst you will have spotted that Borussia Dortmund are thus in Arsenal's group. They were drawn together a couple of seasons ago. Dortmund are a bit better now. Arsenal a bit worse.
17.30 Manchester City out of the pot, and they go straight into Group D.
17.30 Ajax into Group H! That's going to be brilliant!
17.29 Zenit go into Group G. Early days, but that's looking like the hipster's group of choice.
17.29 Bayer Leverkusen into United's group!
17.28 All of which means Manchester City, who have to go into the top half of the draw, but can't play United, will definitely go into Group D with Bayern Munich and CSKA Moscow.
17.27 Galatasaray... go into Group B with Real Madrid and Juventus.
17.26 Olympiakos go into Group C with Benfica and PSG.
17.25 Basel are the first team out of Pot C... and they go into Chelsea's group! Unless a Napoli leaps out of Pot D, that's looking like a reasonably comfortable group for them.
17.23 Telegraph columnist, BT Sport pundit and occasional ex-footballer Michael Owen saunters out to draw Pot C. "Now it's getting really serious," says Gianni, with all the drama of a death row guard.
17.21 Here come Juventus... either United or Real for them. Either way, it's going to be a corker. It's Real. A repeat of the 1997 final. Which means United get the none-too-easy assigment of Shakhtar Donetsk.
17.20 Atletico Madrid now. It's either United or Porto for them... and it's Porto. Which means United now get either Shakhtar or Juventus.
17.19 CSKA Moscow go into group D, Bayern Munich's group.
17.18 It's PSG! They could go into United's group... But instead, it's Benfica for them.
17.17 Schalke... go into Group E with Chelsea. "Both blue, so one of them has to change a shirt," says Gianni. That's the sort of thing that counts as a joke down Nyon way.
17.16 AC Milan now... Group H. It's Barcelona again! I think that's three years in a row those two have been drawn together. Still, Milan have Mario Balotelli now which changes everything*.
*not much
17.15 It's Marseille! But where are they going to go? Tell us, Johan!They go into Arsenal's group! Arsenal avoid AC Milan, PSG and Juventus.
17.14 Johan Cruyff on stage now to draw the Pot 2 teams. This is where things start to get interesting.
Phil Bayliss has an idea: "Keep it simple. Winners of the league pot 1, runners–up pot 2, third place pot 3, and yes you have guessed it, 4th place pot 4. I want to see English clubs play each other in the group stages!"
One problem. Only England, Spain and Germany get to send their fourth-placed teams to the Champions League. Pot 1 is going to be an awfully crowded place.
17.11 That concludes the Pot 1 teams. Billy McNeill is despatched off the stage in disgrace, with barely a ripple of applause greeting him as he finds his seat at the back of the auditorium, very possibly in one of the Restricted View areas. You had one job, Billy. One job.
17.09 Benfica and Porto out of the hat, which leaves Manchester United in Pot A. Gianni now having to remind Billy McNeill to hold the slip of paper up for the cameras. This is getting quite hard to watch.
17.08 Barcelona in Group H. Try to derive some significance from that. You will fail. I've tried, and I do tenuous for a living.
Tony Hood: "If the Pot system is based on success over the last five years can you explain why Arsenal, who have not won a Pot of any description for at least 7 years, are still allowed in Pot 1. They are indeed Potless!"
Consistency, Tony. It's the new trophies.
17.07 Gianni has now completely taken over ball-opening duties from Billy. Billy is being a reduced to a reading-out-bits-of-paper role. Real Madrid and Bayern Munich go into Groups B and D respectively.
17.06 Chelsea in Group E. That means both of the Manchester teams will be in Groups A-D. The four English teams are split into separate halves of the draw for optimum TV moolah.
17.05 Billy McNeill, bless him, is having a little trouble getting these little balls open. Gianni has to give him a hand.
17.04 Arsenal are the first ball out of the pot. They're in Group F. This means nothing to anyone so far.
17.02 Off we go...
Peter Emery: "Funny how Platini somehow manages to make wearing a suit and tie look scruffy."
17.00 Infantino is now talking about "stamping out this evil once and for all" and "the enormous damage it does to society". Unfortunately, he's not talking about loud music at trophy presentations. He's talking about racism.
16.58 It's our old friend, Uefa general secretary Gianni Infantino. Now with added bombast! "We are all eager to share in the excitement and passion that the most prestigious competition in the world, the Uefa Champions League, brings with it." The most prestigious competition in the world! What about Miss Universe?
16.57 Gary Lineker, you speak the words of a million men.
Marco Jackson: "Hard to look past Bayern, and would prefer to see them, or a dark horse (Napoli?) to the new money."
Juan Dickinson recalls one of my favourite groups of all time: "1998 World Cup, Spain, Nigeria, Paraguay and Bulgaria. Spain manager Javier Clemente said: 'This is not the group of death, as some people have said. It is the group of heart attacks.' Spain didn't get past the group stage, and the opening loss to Nigeria must have caused a few attacks of angina in La Furia Roja faithful."
16.53 The preambles/formalities have started. And it's Billy McNeill carrying the trophy! Someone give him a hand with that, the guy's 73 years old. Instead, our hosts simply stand there and applaud him. Heartless.
Charlie McCorkell from Glasgow writes: "'Plucky' Celtic are in pot 4! What about plucky Man City or 'plucky' any English team for that matter? 'Plucky' Glasgow Celtic came within a smidgen of beating Barcelona twice in this competition last year. So please do not patronise us."
English teams can be plucky too. Plucky Fulham in the Europa League. Plucky Wigan this season. And to be fair, Celtic are very plucky.
16.48 Given their fairly easy existence in the SPL, the Champions League draw is turning into one of the highlights of the season at Celtic.
Who does Marco Aondio fancy to win the Champions League this year? "Arsenal because they just signed Flamini. So-called world-class strikers, and goalkeepers are over-rated, right?"
16.43 So, a few of you are asking about the pots. Arsenal in pot one? Dortmund in pot four? Yes, they look fairly arbitrary, although if you look closely you'll see that they fulfil their function perfectly, which is to ensure the same teams get seeded year afer year. In order to break into that top pot you'll need to perform consistently well for at least five seasons. Which is a lot harder, of course, when you're constantly going up against seeded teams. You see? You see? There's a certain evil genius to it.
Ross Dunbar offers some much-needed perspective on so-called 'groups of death': "Has anyone actually ever died while participating in one of these? No. Well stop calling them that."
Killer email, Ross. Knocked me stone dead with that one.
16.27 Aaron Ramsey with a sentence that will make Arsenal fans' hearts go all a-flutter until he gets to the last four words...
Emma Davis: "I think when Bale signs for Real Madrid it is looking like it could be their year! But again if Chelsea have Mourinho and a very strong squad, they have more fight - not that I am biased or anything…"
Chelsea have, by the way, just announced the signing of Samuel Eto'o, Africa's all-time leading Champions League scorer.
16.22 Henry Winter has the latest on Michel Platini and Sir Alex:
"The Uefa president Michel Platini has wished Sir Alex Ferguson a 'well-earned retirement' but hopes the former Manchester United manager will be involved in 'helping shape the direction of the sport'.
"Ferguson retired last May but retains some involvement in the game as a non-executive director and club ambassador at Old Trafford and also on the end of a phone if his successor, David Moyes, needs advice. Platini indicated that he wants to tap into Ferguson’s experience. Ferguson, 71, has been on Uefa’s technical team, working for the organisation at the Champions League final at Wembley in May."
Jamie Cast writes: "Real Madrid to win the Champions League."
That may well happen.
16.15 Hello, everyone. Well, you know the drill. We wait hours and hours for the draw, it happens in about three minutes (with a possible musical interlude from Shakira - will keep you updated on that), we fuss over it for about half an hour, and then it's forgotten again for another six months, gone from our lives. In the meantime, some classic draw footage from 1990, proving that Sepp Blatter has genuinely never had hair.
16.05 Well, my build-up is done. I am going to hand you over to Jonathan for the main event. I'm like a live blog fluffer. Over to you, Jonathan.
16.01 Decent show from Britain again, innit. Five teams. Four English, four Germans. Four Spanish teams. I have to say, I reckon it's gone well for Benfica and Porto sneaking into pot one.
15.58 It's Philipp Lahm! "It would be nice if we could avoid the big clubs, but Man City could be in our group. It’s exciting to see what we get as defending champions. We have to get through as FCB, no matter who our opponents are."
15.51 It's a group stage debut for Austria Vienna. I think I am right in saying that they're the only newbies in the draw.
15.44 Ah, good news, readers. Jonathan Liew has arrived and he will be your guide for the draw itself. In the meantime, I wonder what the bookies odds are?
Bayern and Barca are 4/1 joint faves, Real Madrid are 11/2. Chelsea look a decent bet at 12/1 to my mind. Both Manchester clubs are around 13/1 or 14/1. We'll see what effect the draw has on those prices.
15.40 Oh, talking of groups of death. In the practice run draw earlier, one group came out: Real Madrid, PSG, City, Napoli
15.35 Would have thought Sir Fergie had better things to do than get in bed with that mob, but I suppose a gig's a gig.
15.29 Hats off to Celtic, by the way. I watched a bit of the first leg (well, it was on in the pub. Actually, they had it on in the pub with the sound down and were playing soul music, it was all a bit confusing). Anyhow, yeah. I watched a bit of it and I thought they were well beaten by that Shakhter Karagandy lot, surprised that they managed to overturn that.
15.27 That's the beauty of the draw. Permutations.
15.26 On the other hand, they could get Benfica, Marseille and Viktoria Plzen.
15.25 City look like they could have a fight on their hands if things go badly. They could end up with, say, Bayern, Atletico Madrid and, I dunno, Napoli?
15.20 Here's José Mourinho, speaking to UEFA.com ahead of Chelsea's Prague Supercup date: "The draw will be when the training session is finished, we will be watching on TV or on the internet. There’s nothing to do, you cannot choose, it is an open draw."
Magnanimous of him, no? Wot no allegations of fixing? That's become standard practice from managers, hasn't it? Anyhow, he continues.
"The draw has an influence on the competitions of course. Sometimes you get a good draw and sometimes you get a bad draw. Everyone wants to be in the Champions League. It’s the best so everyone wants to be there - it’s good for us to play against the European champions tomorrow. The Champions League is another world - we’ll wait for the draw and hopefully it won’t be the hardest one."
15.15 Afternoon all, Tyers here. Welcome to our live blog of the live draw. Live. You know the drill by now: a pretentious Uefa video, a speech or two, a hero of yesteryear wheeled out to do the draw, and then the excitement of the group stage line-ups.
Here is some more information:
Guide to the Champions League draw.
Pot 1: Bayern Munich (holders), Barcelona, Chelsea, Real Madrid,Manchester United, Arsenal, FC Porto, Benfica
Pot 2: Atletico Madrid, Shakhtar Donetsk, AC Milan, Schalke 04, Marseille, CSKA Moscow, Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus
Pot 3: Zenit St Petersburg, Manchester City, Ajax, Borussia Dortmund, FC Basel, Olympiakos, Galatasaray, Bayer Leverkusen
Pot 4: FC Copenhagen, Napoli, Anderlecht, Celtic, Steaua Bucharest, Viktoria Plzen, Real Sociedad, Austria Vienna
How it works
Seedings are based on Uefa’s coefficient system, based on results in European competition over the past five years. One team from each of the four pots is drawn into each of the eight groups.
Teams from the same country cannot be drawn together at the group stage. The top two teams from each group go through.
It would be foolish to suggest Mourinho forced Guardiola out, but it is clear that when he said he was “tired”, one of the principle things he was tired of was his opposite number at Madrid. 
