The9

Schneiderlin, Alderweireld. End of discussion.

Yoshida did well at right back, but we were screaming out for more attack minded full backs last night. I suspect his height in knowing Midtjylland were set piece experts might have been a contributory factor - Caulker sure as hell wasn't picked for his finesse either and really needs to get up to speed with the fact we're a possession side which usually passes on the floor. Good attacking presence, ironically. Pretty sure Cedric was just rotated out and will start on Sunday, but equally he might now stay out as scoring in Midtjylland is essential and we can't go an entire match with the full backs baulking at the opportunity to run into 40 yards of open space in front of them...

They're attacking midfielders not "forwards", and we really don't. Pelle is always up front on his own except an occasional foray from whichever one of the bank of 3 AMs is up there, but never more than one at a time. We NEVER play 3 up top.

Most of them seem to be arriving by coach so they'll probably all end up in the same place - and it won't be Guildhall Square in this weather.

Given their meaty coefficient would most likely give them a Pot 2 seeding that would be a great draw for us. Pot 1: someone pretty decent Pot 2: Celtic, Pot 3: Saints, Pot 4: Some minor country's champion. 2 qualifiers for knockouts, sorted.

eBay, I would think.

And to be fair, you would know, having been promoted from League 2 in the past 3½ years, which is more than we can say of some teams...

There's a 606 page archived about this too, mostly used by people to slag off Liverpool who happened to be in 7th at the time and benefited from it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A66973314

They were prevented from entering the competition as FA Cup Final losers because they failed the UEFA financial entry criteria, what with being in admin and having parachute payments directed straight to their players even when they were still in the Prem and all. But they did also forget to apply in the first place. It's all on this thread... somewhere. Or failing that... http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/p/portsmouth/8558580.stm I'll leave you to take the rise out of the remaining Andronikou quotes on the article, but it's nice to know that they were claming they were "long-suffering" before they even kicked a ball in THAT SEASON'S FA CUP FINAL, FFS.

That is basically their capacity of course... give or take a few bits of health and safety.

They handed them out in the Northam as you came through the turnstiles too. They also left absolutely shedloads of them around on the concourse whilst we were leaving after the match and I know of someone who took a box home.

I'm now operating on the assumption that when I post to say "I expect X to leave next summer" one of the top 6 will make an offer for them within 2 weeks. So far that's Mane, Wanyama and Pelle rumoured - only Cedric to go (as I originally posted it in response to Fonte bid rumours). FWIW I don't see anyone leaving in this transfer window, and if we slide back into Prem mid-table mediocrity like I think we will this season with the focus on Europa I'm not entirely sure the excitement around players won't move on to others (Stoke's new side, Swansea are well overdue for a pillaging, and maybe more than just Bolasie at Palace).

I'd be more inclined to play Cedric Fonte Caulker Martina Vic Romeu JWP Mane Juanmi Pelle (Though IRL I think I'd pick Tadic and play JWP on Sunday and I wouldn't go near Martina at left back).

And based on the experience of... oooh, every IFC away game ever, that'll leave you with at best 11 players, one of whom is someone's 12-year old.

I'm glad you're confident of Austin's ability to drop into midfield, hold up play and win the ball in the air outside and inside the box... at probably twice the wages.

World's most predictable message.

We need to keep a clean sheet, and we don't play 3 up front.

True, but if you're not chucking it in the mixer, there's no point sending your units up top is there?

Getting back to the general team selection point, Celtic did a very good job last night of illustrating why a clean sheet in a home leg is absolutely vital. Even at 3-1 up (3 goals to offset the one conceded, sounds familiar...) they looked relatively safe, but winning 3-2 at home is SO much worse than winning 1-0 when it comes to preparing for the second leg, because you either have to "not lose" away to a team you only just scraped past at home, or "narrowly lose scoring loads" which is a very good recipe for getting thrashed whilst trying to score goals away from home. With a 1-0 lead you've got the psychological edge of not having conceded, and you can't lose on away goals in the event of an aggregate draw. So in short, we really need to keep a clean sheet tonight (and defend their set pieces well).

I would imagine there's not a person in Western Europe who hasn't worked that out... given the correlation between Saints' activities and those proposed by the statistics in The Numbers Game, I'm amazed they haven't taken more notice of the stats about corners, which are something along the lines of "you only get a shot on target once in every 9 corners won" and you only score from about one in about every 20 corners. There's clearly more work to be done regards analytics in some areas, because our powder-puff floated free-kicks might be better than just knocking it around the edge of the area with 11 defenders in the box, but are they REALLY better than a well-practiced two pass misdirection routine which creates a shot in the box? Also - how do "crossing into the box" corners compare to keeping possession when most of your team is midgets?

Theoretically, but evidently Arnhem was as much about them giving tickets to their friends if they couldn't go. Looks to me like the allocation for (at least) the first group game should be Midtjylland +8 aways (we know that's not even 400 people), then Midtjylland others (can't be more than 550 in total), and then increments of Vitesse +aways. Apart from anything we're unlikely to get a smaller allocation many places than we will for Midtjylland, and with the ID requirement we know the people in Denmark are actually the people with the aways against their names. Plus for the bigger allocations other people can start adding themselves - now is a perfect time for people who didn't go to Arnhem to get themselves on the priority list.

Pretty much every single person I know with a Season Ticket lends their customer number on occasion. There's no doubt in my mind that a large chunk of people who were in Arnhem and had tickets weren't directly eligible - our group had about 40% of people who were there because they knew someone who couldn't go but could get a ticket. Either way, anyone with 3+ aways and an ST will be able to buy today, and all of those people were in that category - we could have sold out within 10 minutes had they chosen to be a lot less restrictive but as long as they sell within the sales period they've done it right. And if they don't, you have to wonder what our appetite for European travel is! Lets not lose sight that it IS a Thursday night in Denmark as well, that's 2 days at least away from work, and the number of people able to get that booked is going to be limited too.

It's almost certainly not anything we're not already doing, they've just chosen to focus on set-pieces for scoring goals whilst we've chosen defending for stopping them. We've definitely done plenty of modelling around set pieces because we almost always do the same thing and it's never a shot (which statistically is a very low return option compared to other choices, if much more sexy).

Theoretically (STs not membership) they charge you £10, but in practice they seem to have been doing it for free post-Cortese, assuming you only do it once, with the threat of a charge next time - as I say, that was for lost/forgotten ST cards, but the principle is the same if they're loading tickets onto the membership cards.

Because the eligibility criteria has meant that we were selling to a subset of only 1500 people to begin with, all of whom have already been to an away match in Europe this month.