UEFA Champ League: Arsenal Face Besiktas

English Premiership side, Arsenal will play Turkish side Besiktas in the Champions League play-off round, while Celtic, who have Super Eagles’ defender, Efe Ambrose on their payroll, face Maribor after being reinstated into the competition.

The fixtures were announced Friday morning in Nyon, Switzerland, by UEFA officials.

Arsenal will have to travel to Turkey for the first leg of the clash either on 19 or 20 of  August, while the return leg takes place at the Emrates Stadium, England either on 26 or 27 of August. Winner of the two legs qualify for the main draw.

The Gunners, who finished fourth in the Premier League, have appeared in the group stages of the Champions League in the past 14 seasons.

Celtic lost 6-1 to Legia Warsaw in qualifying, but the Polish team fielded an ineligible player.

Besiktas’s squad include striker Demba Ba, who moved from Chelsea in July.

Besiktas finished third in the Turkish championship last season but have qualified for the Champions League after champions Fenerbahce were suspended from European competitions over domestic match-fixing.

Arsene Wenger’s men last made it past the round of 16 in 2009-10 and will be determined to do better this term, yet they will have to see off the Turks first, who last featured in European club football’s elite competion 2009-10.

In what is arguably the standout tie of the play-offs, Rafael Benitez’s Napoli will have to deal with La Liga representatives Athletic Bilbao if they are to reach the group stages.

The Serie A outfit impressed in the Champions League three years ago, yet were eliminated in the group stages last term. Athetic, meanwhile, have appeared in the Champions League just once before, when they crashed out in the group stages in 1998-1999.

Furthermore, Lille meet Porto, while Bayer Leverkusen take on Copenhagen and Standard Liege will have to battle Zenit in the final tie of the league route.

Meanwhile, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger believes that his club have lost the vulnerability that once made their players easy prey for Sunday’s Community Shield opponents Manchester City.

Bacary Sagna became the third player to join City from Arsenal in recent seasons when he swapped the Emirates Stadium for the Etihad Stadium in June, but Wenger’s side are now operating on something approaching an equal footing in the transfer market.

Having signed Mesut Ozil in a club-record deal a year ago, Arsenal bought Alexis Sanchez from Barcelona in a move reportedly worth around £30 million ($50.5 million, 37.8 million euros) last month, and Wenger feels they can no longer be considered the poor relations among the Premier League’s leading sides.

“It looks like we are a bit closer,” he told journalists at the Emirates on Thursday.

“We are less vulnerable, that’s for sure. Because in the last two years we bought Ozil and Sanchez. Five years ago we would have lost Ozil and Sanchez!”

Wenger saw Sagna’s fellow France internationals Samir Nasri and Gael Clichy leave Arsenal for City in 2011, while Cesc Fabregas and Robin van Persie also made high-profile exits around the same time.

While Wenger admitted that it was painful to see his best players leave, he said that the identity of the buying club made no difference.

“What is tiring is to lose the players. To Manchester City or to somebody else, for me it is the same,” he said.

But Wenger did admit that he was disappointed by Sagna’s decision to leave the club after seven years in north London.

Asked why the 31-year-old former Auxerre player had elected to seek pastures new, Wenger replied: “You should ask him that question. I made him a proposal to stay for three years, and he chose City.

“Had he chosen that a long time ago? Maybe. Has he made an early decision? Maybe. It looks to me like he has signed (for City) a long time before, or agreed, because he couldn’t sign.”

Wenger rejected suggestions, however, that City had ‘bullied’ Arsenal into acquiring their best players.

“What you call ‘bullying’, I don’t call that bullying,” he said.

“You pay the price. Usually the transfer is an agreement between three parties and for years we were not in a position where we could say ‘no’. Like Southampton this season.

“At the end of the day, the players finish at the richest clubs. Man United did that as well for years. But they just had superior financial power. They still have.”

Arsenal crashed to a 6-3 defeat at City last season and also fell to heavy losses at Liverpool (5-1) and Chelsea (6-0).

Wenger said that there mitigating factors behind the loss at the Etihad — such as fatigue after a mid-week trip to Naples in the Champions League — but he admitted that his side’s record against their fellow title contenders was a worry.