Title holder Real Madrid will face former winners Liverpool while Manchester City have been drawn at home to Inter Milan and Aston Villa take on Bayern Munich as part of the new-look league phase to the Champions League that organizers are hoping will provide a more exciting first stage.

The new format sees all 36 teams forming a single league, with each entrant playing four home games and four away.

The top eight will go straight into the last 16 while a round of play-offs will decide the other eight teams.

City, who will also play French champions Paris Saint-Germain at the Etihad, will also face Juventus, Club Brugge, Feyenoord, Sporting Lisbon, Sparta Prague and Slovan Bratislava.

Liverpool, returning after a year’s absence, landed a home fixture against holders Real Madrid. Leipzig, Bayer Leverkusen, AC Milan, Lille, PSV Eindhoven, Bologna and Girona made up their schedule.

Arsenal were drawn out of pot two already knowing they would face PSG, Atalanta and Inter Milan. The rest of their opponents came out as Shakhtar Donetsk, Dinamo Zagreb, Sporting Lisbon, Monaco and Girona.

Leon Bailey’s Aston Villa, who last lifted the European Cup in 1982, have been given a mouth-watering home encounter with Bayern Munich.

The West Midlands club will also host Juventus and Scottish champions Celtic. Their other five fixtures will be against Leizpig, Club Brugge, Young Boys, Bologna and Monaco.

For the new season, the Champions League has expanded from 32 to 36 teams, a transformation from the traditional group stage to a single league phase including all participating teams.

Each team has been drawn against two different teams from each pot, playing one team at home and one away. Teams will play eight matches against eight different teams.

Every club will now be guaranteed a minimum of eight league-stage games against eight different opponents (four home games, four away) rather than the previous six matches against three teams, played on a home-and-away basis.

The top eight sides in the league will qualify automatically for the knockout stages, while the teams finishing in ninth to 24th place will compete in a two-legged play-off to secure a place in the last 16 of the competition.

Teams ranked 25-36 are eliminated from all competitions.