The9

The first threads were about qualifying, my thread was about the competition, which was hijacked by a bunch of people discussing qualifying. Tbh we went right up to losing to Midtjylland with all this detail last year including all of the teams in the CL and EL all through qualifying, and if I'm bored at half 1 in the morning again I might bother to do it again at some point. But probably not worth doing anything until the 3rd Qualifying Rounds or PlayOff round. We were barely going to be in Pot 3 last year by the skin of our teeth, had we gone through. With the extra 0.75ish of a point this time around we'll probably be marginally better off, but more depends on which inexperienced sides fall out of the CL and which underdogs get through the EL knockout stages than anything much around our slightly better coefficient. The good news is that making the Group Stages already guarantees us a much better chance of a better coefficient next year: http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/country/

Quite.

He also scored a great own goal in one of their "waiting for the playoffs" games a few weeks ago.

He did will in a couple of Europa League games not good enough then? Also, he looks and plays like Mane which makes it easier to envisage for some people.

Seems quite late. As I keep mentioning, the lack of emergency (outside Transfer Window) loans in future is going to be a significant development in lower league football going forward - you've got to think there will be a few caught out by it, you'd expect Portsmouth would have a significant advantage as they should have more money up front - assuming Fratton Park doesn't need patching up again...

He ought to be, Morecambe, Crawley and Newport are all utterly skint and either in undeveloped football markets or competing with bigger local rivals with better infrastructure higher up the Leagues. At least Portsmouth isn't an undeveloped football market, even if their support levels are stuck in reverse and dwindling they're still getting up to 10 times the crowds of those three, and only 2 go down. FWIW Notts County are also a basket case and might be in trouble too.

There were at least 15,000 more Saints fans in Wembley for the JPT than there are Liverpool fans in Basel's ground tonight.

The upload allows you to add stuff from your PC direct now, using "Insert Image" then "From Computer"... I did it for this: which was something I threw together end of last season after the leak but prior to the actual announcement. Basically this site hosts it for you.

I heard the away was "different" and the usual argument that it's not yellow and blue because it doesn't sell, when in the megastore the other day.

We haven't had a third shirt at any point wearing adidas (or the year we dipped out). The last 3rd kit was the yellow Umbro which had been the away in the Championship season, and that was so poorly planned by Cortese they sold them off cheap at the end of the previous season. To the shock of no-one even remotely familiar with English club kits, we then wore the all-white away kit ONCE in the League, and the yellow numerous times, including any time we played a team in the red and white stripes we were so sadly lacking. I did flag up pre-season that we could have drawn someone wearing red and green, like Maritimo, in the Europa League qualifiers. That would have been funny, but they didn't qualify.

League debut yes, but he played in the League Cup and FA Cup in the Championship promotion season. Actually scored against Coventry in the FA Cup (and then went 2 full seasons and until the April of the third one before his next goal, which remains the only time I've ever bet on him as first scorer).

Especially as he'll probably be starting because they'll probably play their reserves.

I'm fairly certain he'll either start the match, stand around for 5 minutes and then get substituted, or come on for the same amount of time at the end.

The email they sent out to announce ST prices had your seat number on the seat in the pic too.

Apart from anything, they've now proven for at least the last 2 years that their player recruitment model is hugely flawed - they keep signing established players on decent wages, usually from the league above, and all that happens is they take the money, enjoy the relatively big crowd for that level at first, and gradually slip into complacency. By the time the crowd gets narky they've already forgotten all about motivation and the kind of enthusiasm and effort you need to put in and they're in bad habits that players at that level can't afford to have. They ARE the Chelsea of League 2 in relative terms - except of course they've never won anything, unlike their legitimately (as opposed to relatively) rich equivalents. So basically they need to start recruiting younger, hungry players, and stop signing average League 1 players and paying them too much. And then hope they don't get sucked into the circus and start believing their own hype.

Agreed.

I am conflicted. I like Brighton as a place to go and watch football and have a beer and suchlike, but I don't ever want them to get in the Premier League, the bunch of turds.

Only ones not interfering with the defence, of course... like Kane apparently wasn't. I'm in favour of the pre-1994 law, before Romario decided to show precisely how to exploit second phase, but with the "daylight needed" interpretation (because I used to be a striker).

That actually does make sense, but completely undermines the somewhat important "offside position when the ball is played" element of the law. You've still got to be in an offside position to begin with, and it's that position at the time the ball is played where the free kick should be taken from, whether you're active or not at the time.

Not only is it horrible, it's last year's (possibly even the year before's) UA template too.

Had our adidas kit lasted another season I have no doubt we'd basically have the West Brom kit in red and white, with red or white adidas stripes down the sides depending on which colour the side bits were. There's nothing remotely exciting about that Bayern shirt though, it's the same as everything else adidas have done, probably with a different collar.

I also have no idea why this is still being discussed. Group stage if Man U lose to Bournemouth OR if Man U win the FA Cup 3rd Qualifying Round if Man U get at least a draw against Bournemouth and Palace win the FA Cup.

UEFA have absolutely made it completely clear what would happen in this situation, and announced it before the semi-finals were even completed. "How it could impact on associations' allocations • Although no longer the case this season, it is theoretically possible for a country with a potential three UEFA Champions League places (currently Italy, Portugal or France) to up this number to five, a country with two places (e.g. Ukraine) to increase to four, or a country with one place to up it to three. This can only happen if the association in question has two clubs who win both major European club competitions but that also do not qualify via their own league.* • Regarding the top three associations (i.e. Spain, Germany and England*): if two clubs from one of these countries win the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League, and neither finish their domestic league in a position that qualifies them for the UEFA Champions League (something that had been possible in England with Manchester City and Liverpool), the following will happen: – The club that won the UEFA Champions League will go straight into the group stage – The UEFA Europa League winners will go into the UEFA Champions League play-offs – The club that had qualified for a UEFA Champions League play-off spot via their domestic league competition (i.e. finished fourth) will transfer into the UEFA Europa League" http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/news/newsid=2215121.html

They are absolutely utter bo110cks.

I bought some never-released and never worn alternate white away shorts in the Megastore yesterday... well seriously, what else could these be? There will be another concourse sale, because the shorts were labelled "Concourse sale £5" and they absolutely were not in the last concourse sale.