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Arsenal, Liverpool drawn together in Champions League

Arsenal and Liverpool will meet in the quarter-finals of the Champions League after the draw was made at UEFA headquarters in Nyon yesterday.

Manchester United face Roma in a repeat of their clash at this stage last year while Chelsea, the fourth English club in the last eight, will play Turkish outsiders Fenerbahce.

Barcelona will have home advantage in the second leg after being drawn to play Germany's Schalke, who like Fenerbahce are in the Champions League last eight for the first time, although the Bundesliga side reached the European Cup quarter-finals in 1958.

With the semi-final draw also being made, the eight remaining clubs now know their prospective paths to the final to be played in Moscow on May 21.

Liverpool chief executive Rick Parry reflected: "We were hoping to avoid an English team but statistically it was going to be hard to avoid a 100 percent English quarter-final ... Between the two quarter-final ties we also play Arsenal in the Premier League. It's going to be interesting."

Liverpool could face Chelsea in the last four, having beaten them at that stage last year and in 2005. Manchester United and Barcelona are also on course for a semi-final clash.

Premier League leaders Arsenal, beaten in the final two years ago, will be at home in the first leg against the five-times European champions. The clubs have never met before in European competition.

Twice winners Manchester United and Roma have plenty of history in the competition. Roma will have painful memories of the 7-1 drubbing they suffered at Old Trafford last season after a first leg marred by crowd trouble had finished 1-1 in the Olympic Stadium.

They met again in the group stage of this season's competition, with United winning 1-0 at home and the match in Italy ending 1-1. Like last year Roma will be at home first.

Barcelona will have been relieved to avoid English opposition as they still have recent memories of defeats against Liverpool and Chelsea.

Schalke, who qualified for the knockout stages despite picking up just eight points in their group, have never met Barcelona before and will need a strong performance at home in the first leg to stand a chance of upsetting the Catalans.

Likewise Turkish champions Fenerbahce will aim to benefit from their fanatical home support in the first leg as they tackle Chelsea.

The quarter-final first legs will be played on April 1-April 2 with the returns a week later. The semi-finals start on April 22-April 23.
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