UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE DRAWS:ARSENAL AND Liverpool will collide in the quarter-finals of the Champions League next month after being handed the all-English tie all four Premier League clubs involved had dreaded, with Arsène Wenger conceding that the first two weeks in April will go a long way towards defining his side's season.

The Premier League leaders will host the five-times European Cup winners in the first leg on April 2nd and are due to play them again in the league three days later, with the following week's second leg swiftly pursued by what is likely to be a top-of-the-table clash at Manchester United.

Chelsea will meet Fenerbahce and United renew hostilities with Roma, but it is Arsenal's meeting with Liverpool that has caught the imagination.

Wenger described the draw, made in Nyon yesterday, as "challenging, interesting, and a game in which we will need to be at our top form".

His team lead the Premier League by two points - they are the only one of the quarter-finalists topping their domestic division - and drew at Anfield earlier this season. They won there in both domestic cups last term, though Wenger remains wary of the threat Liverpool pose, particularly in Europe.

"At some stage when you fight for the big prizes you get into April and every game can change your season from fantastic to super-fantastic to terrible," he said.

"I would ideally have preferred not to play another English side, but you have to at some stage. Compared to Chelsea playing Fenerbahce and the history of Manchester United against Roma, I suppose you would have to say us and Liverpool have been given the hardest draw of the English teams.

"You know Liverpool will not invite us to go through, but we can achieve that. I'm very confident that we can. They'll be cup games, so the league game in between will be very different, and it will be vital not to concede at home. But our belief is very, very strong.

"The players genuinely want to do well and, don't forget, we've lost just one game since the beginning of the season in the championship and one also in the Champions League when we had already qualified."

Rafael Benitez's record in Europe with Liverpool is staggering, with the Spaniard having seen off Chelsea twice at the semi-final stage in his three seasons in charge. There is the prospect of the sides meeting again at that stage, with the semi-final pitting the winners of their respective ties together. "Nobody wanted to play an English team," said Benitez.

Chelsea will be happier with their lot, with Avram Grant's side to take on unfancied Fenerbahce - the first Turkish club to reach this stage in eight years - with the first leg in Istanbul. The chief executive Peter Kenyon admitted he was "delighted" to have avoided Premier League opponents, while Grant was in bullish mood.

"We are not afraid of any team," he said. "We are a club that has not been in the final, and that is our main target. We want to achieve that as soon as possible."

United face familiar foes having played Roma at the same stage last season and in this term's group phase. Last year's matches were marred by crowd trouble but, despite succumbing 2-1 in Italy, Alex Ferguson's side rallied with a 7-1 victory in the second leg at Old Trafford. This season's meeting there was won 1-0, with the second match seeing a virtual reserve line-up draw 1-1 in Rome. The fourth quarter-final sees Barcelona, who beat Arsenal in the final two years ago, play the unheralded German club Schalke.

Meanwhile in the quarter-finals of the Uefa Cup, Rangers have been drawn against Bolton's conquerors, Sporting Lisbon, with Rangers at home in the first leg at Ibrox on April 3rd.

In the other quarter-final ties, Bayer Leverkusen take on FC Zenit St Petersburg, Bayern Munich face Getafe and Fiorentina play PSV Eindhoven.

Should Walter Smith's side progress at the expense of the Portuguese they would face PSV Eindhoven or Fiorentina for a place in the final.