The league phase of the Champions League concluded on Wednesday night with a bumper round of 18 matches as all 36 teams competed.
Five of the six English teams qualified automatically for the last 16 as Arsenal (first), Liverpool (third), Tottenham (fourth), Chelsea (sixth) and Manchester City (eighth) finished in the top-eight spots.
Newcastle United were the only Premier League side not to qualify automatically with the Magpies’ 12th-place finish seeing them enter a play-off spot to join the aforementioned quintet.
The draw for the play-offs will take place at 11am (GMT) Friday morning with the first legs across February 17-18 and the return fixtures a week after on February 24-25.
But looking beyond that stage, who is the favourite to win it all? Well, according to Opta’s supercomputer – via Opta Analyst, there is one standout outfit.
Arsenal finished top of the league phase with a flawless eight wins from eight and they are predicted to go on and win the competition for the first time in their history.
Before the league phase started, Opta’s supercomputer conducted 10,000 simulations and had Arsenal second-favourites to conquer Europe at 16 per cent.
Fast-forward several months to now and that percentile has nearly doubled with Mikel Arteta’s side at a staggering 29.8 per cent to win it all from the latest simulations taken on Thursday.
This is not only based on their European form, but their domestic too with the north London outfit top of the Premier League table.
Furthermore, the Gunners are backed at 47.1 per cent to reach the final – something they haven’t done since losing the 2006 showpiece to Barcelona.
Bayern Munich finished second to Arsenal in the league phase on 21 points, losing their head-to-head encounter 3-1 in the English capital two months ago, and they are second-favourites to win the competition outright.
Originally eighth-favourites in September at 4.3 per cent, Vincent Kompany’s men are now at 14.9 per cent to become European champions for a seventh time in their history.
Despite only just creeping into the top eight, Manchester City are third-favourites to go all the way at 10.5 per cent – a slight increase from September’s prediction of being fourth-favourites at 8.4 per cent.
More English clubs round out the top five with Liverpool in fourth and Chelsea fifth.
Liverpool, who are having a bad season by their lofty standards, were the original favourites at 20.4 per cent but now are predicted to have just an 8.9 per cent chance to go all the way.
The Reds edge out rivals Chelsea who have 7.5 per cent prediction to become three-time winners of this competition.
Despite being in the play-offs, Newcastle United have been given the eighth-best odds to win the tournament at 3.2 per cent – which is a marginal increase of 0.2 from September (three per cent).
With Newcastle in eighth; Barcelona (sixth – seven per cent) and holders Paris Saint-Germain (seventh – 5.1 per cent) sit above them. The latter were third-favourites before the Champions League started at 12.1 per cent but that has dwindled due to being in the play-offs once more.
Inter Milan, who were thumped 5-0 by PSG in last season’s final, are ninth at 2.7 per cent, while Sporting round-out the top 10 at 2.3 per cent.
On the same percentile as the Portuguese giants are Tottenham Hotspur who are 11th. Spurs may be struggling domestically but their European form has seen them more than double their chances of 1.1 per cent four months ago.
Remarkably it is not until you get to 12th-place that you come across Real Madrid. The perennial winners of this competition are at just a 1.9 percentile to lift a record-extending 16th title on May 30 in Budapest.
Real’s bitter rivals Atletico Madrid are 13th and the last team to have one per cent or higher chance of winning the Champions League – at exactly one per cent.
Juventus (0.7 per cent), Benfica (0.5 per cent), Borussia Dortmund (0.5 per cent), Bayer Leverkusen (0.3 per cent), Atalanta (0.2 per cent), Club Brugge (0.2 per cent), Galatasaray (0.1 per cent) and Olympiacos (0.1 per cent) have all been given remote odds to be victorious come May.
Meanwhile, Bodo/Glimt, Monaco and Qarabag have all been given no chance at all at zero per cent.
