Arsenal battle after setback to earn spot in group draw

Antonio Di Natale levelled the play-off aggregate scores in the first half of the second leg.

But the Gunners turned the game around through goals from new captain Robin van Persie and Theo Walcott, which sandwiched a brilliant penalty save by Wojciech Szczesny.

The win came on a day when Arsenal – who lost captain Cesc Fabregas to Barcelona last week – finally surrendered 24-year-old France international Samir Nasri to Manchester City for around £24m.

City are likely to be handed a tough introduction to life in the Champions League.

Roberto Mancini’s side are set to be among the group of third seeds in the draw in Monaco – meaning the strongest sides in Europe outside of England are all potential opponents.

The other English clubs in the Champions League draw are all among the top seeds, alongside Barcelona, Real Madrid, Inter Milan, Porto and Bayern Munich.

The worst-case scenario for City would be to drawn into a group with champions Barcelona, AC Milan and Borussia Dortmund.

There is also the possibility of a more straightforward task for City, with a possible group of Porto, Marseille and APOEL from Cyprus.

UEFA’s rules for the draw will see the 32 qualified teams 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 ranking but even the fourth pot contains some teams the English clubs would hope to avoid such as Napoli and Dinamo Zagreb.

The top two in each group will go through to the knockout phase of the Champions League, and the third-place side to the knock-out phase of the Europa League.

The Turkish Football Federation yesterday announced they had barred Fenerbahce from the Champions League as a consequence of the Turkish match-fixing scandal.

UEFA last night confirmed they would be replaced by Turkish runners-up Trabzonspor.

The decision means that Trabzonspor’s scheduled Europa League qualifier against Athletic Bilbao today has been cancelled, with the Spanish club progressing automatically.

Arsenal show mettle to see off Udinese: Page 22.