The9

I doubt any of them will get close to playing in the EFL so not massively bothered tbf.

God forbid a team successfully defends when playing a man short for an hour, and then celebrates completely upsetting the odds eh? Absolutely top, top levels of delusion there. For context, I went for 4 aways today and Carlisle were the only one that had someone sent off, and also the only one that didn't lose.

I'd be guessing ------------Forster Cedric Fonte Van Dijk Bertrand/Martina/McQueen/Pied ---------------Romeu Ward-Prowse-----------Clasie ---------------Davis---------- ----------Long-----Redmond Bones of contention for me are > Fonte/Cedric returning without pre-season (or we're a LOT weaker at CB) > Bertrand seems to be injured and McQueen might be ok or might not, the coach may not know Martina in theory can play left back (but apparently so can Pied) > Romeu or Hojbjerg (or maybe Clasie?) for DM > God only knows which other midfield combination, I've put Clasie in, in case we need to protect the left back - but think Tadic should start, and I'm not sure Davis gets the nod either but I'd pick him. Unless we play one of Tadic/Redmond/Hojbjerg/Davis in the hole or wide, which opens up Austin to start. But Ward-Prowse is probably our strongest academy product, and he's been decent pre-season... > Two from Long, Redmond or Austin up top (though split wide).

I'm just disappointed that Newport's late concession put them below the Skates, until then they were ahead on goals scored. That'll be the last time Newport are above them this season I should think.

LOLz. 1-1. Playing an hour at home against 10 men. Lovely stuff.

Somewhat distracted by Newport conceding a 93rd minute goal at home.

So, how late do we reckon they're going to get this winner against ten men, at home? 84 minutes on the clock, an hour against 10 men so far.

Funnily enough I think Redmond has already shown he's capable of filling the Mane role admirably, he's creative, skilful, quick and a decent finisher. It's whether he'll be played where he can affect the game enough that I feel is the issue. We don't have a target man so our "overlapping fullbacks" idea seems to fall down as it requires low early passes to runners' feet from the full backs, rather than the less technically difficult high ball in behind the back line for which a lower completion rate is accepted. Having said that, we've got a wealth of midfielders who can pick a pass and some nippy strikers, we might be able to create enough like that.

Much as I'd like Spurs to have come 4th... they came 3rd. Fair point about stats. It's how many times you put the round thing between the stick things that matters, irrespective of how you get it there within the rules.

Hm, and have been playing against 10 men since the 29th minute. Still only 1-1 at the moment though, but I can't see them not winning it against 10 even with Carlisle's goal threat.

Comical. We were as rapidly attacking in the friendly as I've ever seen us with a heap of through balls and crossing and quick, mobile attackers moving the ball quickly and creating potentially goalscoring options. Some of the execution and timing was a little off but it's preseason and they're still working on the runs and timing. Massive improvement even on the Groningen game, where we had loads of ball and didn't do anything apart from get up the wing and cut it inside and not create a chance.

McQueen's delivery yesterday was excellent late on, quick and into the dangerous zones strikers should be attacking, but we don't have a target man to pick out any more. I don't even remember Martina crossing.

One of the better aspects of Koeman was his ability to coach the players into different successful systems, albeit sometimes after a bit of a delay. Any single-formation system will need to be easily adaptable for the match-by-match issues presenting, and if we stick with just one formation rigidly I give it a month before opposing coaches are taking it apart due to the predictability just like Howe did at Dean Court last season. We need a couple of systems with a few tweaks, but it's understandable that the manager wants to get the main one right first. It's on him if they're unprepared (just like it was on Koeman that we got rolled over by Everton early on last season despite that being down to a depleted squad in key positions at the time). Where's Puel said they're not ready/not adapting, etc?

Yeah but Blatter will say anything to anyone depending on how beneficial it is to him and he's going to be slating UEFA and Platini in particular until he dies to try and undermine their integrity. You'll note he didn't name anyone involved or specify when exactly it happened, because then he'd be open to legal action from UEFA and/or the people being slandered. I'm fairly sure that kind of rigging is only worthwhile when you get to the last 8 anyway, and the entire concept of European club football competition is set up to favour the bigger teams to begin with, so it's not like they need to do much as the process eradicates the "undesirables" and everyone gets their own level of success within the box they've been put in.

Inter are in Pot 1 and just lost 6-1 to Spurs preseason, and they've been gash for about 4 years. Probable Pot 1 team Braga are at best a vaguely decent Portuguese side, we're probably one of the top 10 teams in the competition and our lack of European experience costs us when it comes to seeding. It's not an exact science though, there are plenty of unseeded teams beating seeded ones every season because the seedings are over 5 years and the performance is only over two legs.

Yes, and you can't be drawn against another club from the same nation. The difference in Pot obviously determines the probability of us playing a better team. If we're in Pot 4, theoretically everyone is better than us and if we're in Pot 3 theoretically we're better than at least one team. Of course coefficient accuracy isn't an exact science, and we're probably significantly underrated compared to our actual potential due to our sporadic European history anyway, so really the Pot we're in is more relevant to the teams we know we can and can't play for planning purposes. Like we're unlikely to play Mainz because our coefficients are very similar and they're likely to be in the same Pot, so I'm not going to bother checking how to get there in any kind of detail.

For those wanting us to avoid Midtjylland, you need around 4 more upsets than Saints need (lower coefficient to begin with and they don't get West Ham and Panathinaikos as automatics as they're not below them to begin with), so actually it does look fairly like we'll be in Pot 3 and them in Pot 4. Of course they have to beat the Turkish side I've never heard of first...

A quick rejigging... With 3 teams already below us in the Group Stages, we need another 9 from these below: 5 will come from these EL Play-Off Round games where both teams are below Saints: Midtjylland vs Osmanlıspor - either Astra vs West Ham United - either Sassuolo vs Red Star Belgrade - either Brondby vs Panathinaikos - either AIK Gothenburg vs Qarabag - either So we need another 4 to go our way from this lot (teams we want to win in Bold): Champions League Play-Off Round (losers drop into the EL Group stage) Dundalk v Legia Warsaw Ajax v Rostov Celtic v Hapoel Be'er Sheva Europa League Play-Off Round (winners go into the EL Group Stage) Astana vs BATE Larnaca vs Slovan Liberec Arouca vs Olympiacos Dinamo Tbilisi vs PAOK Austria Vienna vs Rosenborg Beitar Jeruselum vs Saint Etienne Lokomotov Zagreb vs Genk Trencin vs Rapid Vienna Vojvodina vs AZ Alkmaar Maribor vs Qabala Gent vs Shkendija Slavia Prague vs Anderlecht Istanbul Basaksehir vs Shakhtar Donetsk Sonderjysk E vs Sparta Prague Fenerbahce vs Grasshopper Krasnodar vs Partizani Tirana Maccabi Tel-Aviv vs Hajduk Split

Made me chuckle to myself (CTM, it's the new LOL).

Mind you, I did just see Wales get to the semi-finals of the Euros... and Leicester just won the Premier League, etc.

They can't now, but they can still get Astra Giurgiu, who they lost to last season in 3QR when we were in Arnhem, or Qabala of Azerbaijan which is a fair old trek in its own right. They also could have the pleasure of a trip to Albania to play Tirana. I'll be annoyed if they knock out Slavia Prague, Grasshoppers or Brondby, all of which are hoped-for opponents of mine, to different degrees.

Good God everyone in Group 1 is going to be wanting to play Arouca. When Zagreb is one of your best 3 choices you've not got a good set of possible opponents. Trencin will be ok too. Though I suspect BATE won't mind some of the eastern options. I should suggest Kinder egg balls to UEFA, they're way quicker, you can just squeeze them. Also, beats me why they make such a big deal of the unscrewing as if it's a security feature or something, it's not like the things have any kind of seal on them for integrity, and for all you can see from tv they could have printed the name on the outside of the ball if they wanted to cheat it. Plus they've just arbitrarily placed a load of teams in pre-groups already!

We're pretty unlikely to get them as their coefficient is only 2 different from ours (and assuming there's no-one in the CL or of the teams going directly to Group Stages with a ranking between us) there are only 3 teams between our rankings even with 22 sides who aren't making the Group stages included - so we'll probably be in the same pot and therefore unable to draw them even if they do get through.

Glad you thought it was funny, that was the intention... though possibly not quite like that.

Where's that sarcasm icon, anyway?