Arsenal beat Partizan Belgrade 3-1 at Emirates Stadium to qualify as runners-up in their group, while Chelsea joined Manchester United and Spurs in progressing as pool winners despite a 1-0 defeat in Marseille.

However, with Barcelona and Real Madrid looking in ominous form so far, it is 4/5 for a Spanish team to lift the trophy at Wembley next May.

The Gunners did themselves no favours by failing to win their group as they will now face either of the Spanish giants or one from German duo Bayern Munich and Schalke in the next round.

Arsenal were dumped out in the quarter-finals by Barcelona last season, but Wenger believes if they are paired again, then next year could be a whole different ball game.

"Let’s be realistic, Barcelona are the super favourite at the moment," Wenger said. "But we take what we get and if it is Barcelona, it is Barcelona.

"It depends whether you have your best players available, whether we have a good level of confidence then. It is very difficult to predict how far you can go.

"In the last 16 it becomes a different competition, a cup competition and that means for 180 minutes you have to be at your top."

Wenger added: "Overall we are in a strong potion in the league, we are qualified in the Champions League, we are in the semi-final of the Carling and we start the FA Cup in January. There are plenty of exciting challenges in front of us, but there is room for improvement and I am confident we will.

"When we play now in the last 16 hopefully we have done well in the Premier League and the Carling Cup and we can have a high level of confidence because that will be needed."