UEFA Champions League Group D

Liverpool
PSV Eindhoven
Olympique Marseille
Atletico Madrid

Pundits seem to love the "Group of Death" label but, once again, we get a group with no apparently weak teams. For Liverpool, the Champions League is becoming like a bad reception where you keep bumping into old friends you thought you'd seen the back of. In fairness, with over half the teams being CL regulars, this isn't surprising but would still have been good to see the faces of all the team officials at Thursday's draw.

Only PSV come into the competition as league champions, with Marseille finishing third, and Liverpool and Atletico both fourth in their domestic leagues.

Liverpool met PSV four times in the 2006/7 season. I remember both sides being less than happy with the way UEFA decided on the knock-out phases. It really isn't too difficult to keep teams apart from the group stages; but then again, UEFA did the same thing at Euro 2008, so I've stopped expecting them to make the draws either logical or fair.

Liverpool also met Marseille in last season's group stage, with a spectacular 4-0 demolition in France after being humbled 1-0 at Anfield.

Just to add to the family atmosphere, Fernando Torres will meet his previous club Atletico Madrid for the first time since his transfer to Liverpool. Moving in the opposite direction, Luis Garcia and Florent Sinama-Pongolle will face their old Anfield friends.

Apart from the Liverpool connections the other teams don't have any recent record playing each other to go on.

Prediction: Liverpool and PSV to progress.