Aston Villa, Celtic, Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City affected by UEFA announcement

Aston Villa have discovered more details as to how the UEFA Champions League draw will work.

Unai Emery's side earned a fourth placed finish in the Premier League, and as a result they will dine at European's top table this season. Their qualification for UEFA's top competition comes at a time when it has been revamped with the amount of teams increased and the group stage scrapped with a league phase brought in.

Villa will play against eight other teams and will play them once, rather than the usual three teams with home and away matches. They are likely to be in Pot Four because of their absence from European football, and now more details are emerging ahead of the draw, which will take place in August.

Rob Harris, the sports correspondent for Sky News in a post said: "All 36 teams will be manually drawn using physical balls. Software will randomly draw eight opponents across the four pots, who will be revealed on screen in the draw hall and on TV.”

"Computer will determine if games are home/away."

The traditional draw format would require over 1,000 balls and take several hours, and so UEFA will be using a computer to help assist them with the draw. All 36 teams will be drawn using physical balls and that will start with those in pot one which will be the likes of Manchester City and Real Madrid.

After a team has been physically drawn, automated computer software will at random draw them eight opponents which will be instantly revealed on screen, which will include when they are home and away.

The software is said to guaranteed randomness and will abide by stipulations such as not being able to play against teams from your own country, and at maximum two from the same country.

Aston Villa will know their opponents on Thursday, August 29 a day after the play-off round fixtures are completed, but they will not know their full fixture list until Saturday, August 31.