1. THE DRAW CEREMONY
The 2019/20 UEFA Europa League group stage draw ceremony begins at 12pm UK time on Friday 30th August and will take place at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.
The draw will be streamed live on UEFA.com, while it is also available to watch in the UK live on BT Sports 2, channel 414 on Sky and channel 528 for Virgin media users. BT Sport subscribers can also watch the draw online at sport.bt.com and via the BT Sport app.
2. WOLVES ARE IN POT THREE
The 48 entrants are split into four seeding pots of 12 teams based on their club coefficients, with Wolves being assigned to pot three. Fellow Premier League teams Arsenal and Manchester United find themselves among the highest ranked sides in pot one, alongside the likes of Servilla, Porto and Roma.
The pots will be as follows:
Pot One
Sevilla, Arsenal, Porto, Roma, Man Utd, Dynamo Kyiv, Besiktas, Basel, Sporting, CSKA Moscow, Wolfsburg, Lazio.
Pot Two
PSV, Krasnodar, Celtic, FC Copenhagen, Braga, Gent, Borussia Monchengladbach, Young Boys, Astana, Ludogorets, APOEL, Eintracht Frankfurt.
Pot Three
Saint-Etienne, Qarabag, Feyenoord, Getafe, Espanyol, Malmo, Partizan, Standard Liege, Wolves, Rennes, Rosenborg, Istanbul Basaksehir.
Pot Four
AZ Alkmaar, Vitoria SC, Trabzonspor, FC Olexandriya, F91 Dudelange, LASK, Wolfsberger AC, Slovan Bratislava, FC Lugano, Rangers, CFR Cluj, Ferencvaros.
3. HOW THE DRAW WORKS
Unlike the qualifying round draw, we will finally see the name of Wolverhampton Wanderers unveiled from one of the 48 balls involved in the draw procedure.
During the draw, the four pots will be prepared, each containing 12 balls with slips of paper with the name of the 48 sides which have qualified for the group stages of the competition.
A ball will be drawn one-by-one from pot one first, placing all the highest ranked sides among the 12 Europa League groups. The draw will then proceed to pot two, then pot three before concluding with pot four.
No team can play a club from their own association, meaning Wolves will avoid the groups that contain Manchester United and Arsenal.
At the end of the draw, each of the 12 groups will contain one team from each seeding tier.
4. THE GROUP STAGE SCHEDULE
Although Wolves will know the three teams they will be grouped with on Thursday, the draw won’t decide who they play when – this will be decided by a UEFA computer draw and announced in due course.
During the group stage, Wolves will play each of their three opponents twice – once at home and once again, meaning six matches in total for Nuno’s men.
The group games will, however, take place on the following Thursday evenings:
Matchday one: 19th September
Matchday two: 3rd October
Matchday three: 24th October
Matchday four: 7th November
Matchday five: 28th November
Matchday six: 12th December
Once all four teams have played each other twice, the sides in first and second place in each of the 12 groups will progress into the round of 32. Those 24 sides will be joined by the eight teams who finished third in the Champions League group stages.
The competition will then revert to a straight knockout, over two legs, as the winner of the 2019/20 Europa League is decided.
5. PREMIER LEAGUE CHANGES
As a result of Wolves' progression to the Europa League group stage, the following Premier League fixtures will need to be re-arranged from the following dates, which are currently scheduled to be played on Saturdays:
- Crystal Palace (A) | 21st September
- Manchester City (A) | 5th October
- Aston Villa (H) | 9th November
- Sheffield United (H) | 30th November
- Tottenham Hotspur (H) | 14th December
New dates and kick-off times for the above Premier League fixtures will be announced in due course.
