The9

Sorry, I was sh11tfaced at the time (though still annoying people in the ground with excited updates about Dinamo Minsk etc).

So, let's have a look at Saints' pot-seeding possibilities for the Group Stage... Our coefficient is 16.078 and coefficients do not change throughout the competition. The Group stage draws are seeded into 4 pots, one team from each pot to be drawn into every group. There are 12 groups in total, A-L, hence 12 teams in each pot. Those paying attention will have worked out this means 4 teams in each group (so 6 matches, 3 home and 3 away). Pot 1 is the top coefficient teams, down to Pot 4 for the lowest coefficients. At this stage there are 16 new teams entering, 10 Champions League Play-Off Round losers, and the 22 winners of the Europa League Play-Off Rounds, to give 48 teams into the Europa League Group Stage. Teams directly entering into Group Stage: 1 Germany Schalke 04 CC: 111.883 2 Italy Napoli CC: 84.102 3 England Tottenham Hotspur CC: 84.078 4 Spain Villarreal CC: 58.999 5 France Marseille CC: 55.483 6 Ukraine Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk CC: 52.033 7 Portugal Braga CC: 51.776 8 Italy Fiorentina CC: 49.102 9 Belgium Anderlecht CC: 47.440 10 England Liverpool CC: 47.078 11 Turkey Beşiktaş CC: 36.520 12 Russia Lokomotiv Moscow CC: 23.099 13 FC Basel Switzerland 84.875 OR Maccabi Tel-Aviv FC Israel 18.200 (CL POR loser - both above Saints) 14 Lazio Italy OR Germany Bayer Leverkusen (CL POR loser - both above Saints) 15 Manchester United England OR Belgium Club Brugge (CL POR loser - both above Saints) 16 Sporting Lisbon Portugal OR Russia CSKA Moscow (CL POR loser - both above Saints) 17 Valencia Spain OR France Monaco (CL POR loser - both above Saints) As you can see, there are already more than 12 teams with higher coefficients than Saints (above), so we can't be seeded in the top Pot (and 5 of the Pot 2 slots are already taken too). ---------------------------------------- However the teams below will definitely be ranked below Saints - if there are 12 of them we'll be in at worst in seeding Pot 3, but 24 of them will need to be below Saints to get us seeded into Pot 2: Unfortunately at the moment there are only 6 teams or play-off round pairings definitely worse ranked than Saints: 1 Germany Augsburg CC: 15.883 2 Either FC Krasnodar (RUS) 15.099 or HJK Helsinki (FIN) 11.140 3 Greece Asteras Tripoli CC: 13.380 4 Either Altach (AUT) 5.135 or Belenenses (POR) 12.276 5 Netherlands Groningen CC: 8.695 6 Switzerland Sion CC: 8.375 The teams in bold below winning their tie will also go below Saints - there are 19 ties here: Steaua Bucureşti (ROU) 40.251 v Rosenborg (NOR) 11.875 Viktoria Plzeň (CZE) 41.825 v Vojvodina (SRB) 6.275 Ajax (NED) 66.195 v Jablonec (CZE) 9.325 Molde (NOR) 10.375 v Standard Liège (BEL) 25.440 Žilina (SVK) 8.750 v Athletic Club (ESP) 56.999 Zorya Luhansk (UKR) 10.533 v Legia Warszawa (POL) 24.800 Milsami Orhei (MDA) 3.750 v Saint-Étienne (FRA) 16.983 Young Boys (SUI) 31.375 v Qarabağ (AZE) 11.500 PAOK (GRE) 40.880 v Brøndby (DEN) 7.460 Girondins de Bordeaux (FRA) 24.483 v Kairat Almaty (KAZ) 2.575 Dinamo Minsk (BLR) 9.650 v FC Salzburg (AUT) 43.135 Slovan Liberec (CZE) 16.325 v Hajduk Split (CRO) 11.200 Qäbälä (AZE) 2.750 v Panathinaikos (GRE) 19.880 Astra Giurgiu (ROU) 9.759 v AZ Alkmaar (NED) 46.695 Lech Poznań (POL) 17.300 v Videoton (HUN) 7.950 Rabotnicki (MKD) 4.675 v Rubin Kazan (RUS) 57.099 Atromitos (GRE) 10.380 v Fenerbahçe (TUR) 30.020 Odds BK (NOR) 2.875 v Borussia Dortmund (GER) 99.883 Sparta Praha (CZE) 30.825 v FC Thun (SUI) 10.375 There will also be 10 Champions League Losers dropping in from the CL Play-Off Round - those in bold (potentially 5 more) would be lower ranked than Saints: Astana Kazakhstan 3.825 v APOEL FC Cyp 35.460 KS Skënderbeu Alb 5.575 v Dinamo Zagreb Cro 24.700 Celtic Sco 39.080 v Malmö FF Swe 12.545 FC BATE Borisov Blr 35.150 v FK Partizan Srb 14.775 Rapid Wien Austria 15.635 v Ukraine Shakhtar Donetsk 86.033 That could be as many as 30 teams with worse co-efficients than Saints (but it's incredibly unlikely). Pot 3 seems the most likely - 5 CL underdogs losing, and only 1 EL upset needed - we'd need to find another 12 upsets to get us into Pot 2 - which of course would be massively beneficial as then we wouldn't have to finish above TWO teams with better ranking coefficients than us in the Group to make the knockout stages. Something to keep an eye on for if we get past Midtjylland, anyway.

And so to working out which Pot we'll be in if we make the Group Stages...

For context, Bradley Wright-Phillips seems to be having some kind of massive stardom renaissance.

...and Newport!

We gave them Yates's from first thing in the morning, Guildhall Square, a place to gather without awful high-tempo music remixes all day, cracking weather, a choice of loads of places to eat, a ground comfortably within walking distance, an airport within 5 miles and trains right to the city centre, much MUCH better free programmes, and, ok, probably-not-that-cheap decent hotels. AND we didn't try to run them over on a bike.

As for the actual match, job done in the first 5 minutes and not really bothered about anything much that happened after that - good strength squad giving us the chance to rest Cedric and Targett, and Vitesse didn't offer much threat - even Hooiveld and Fox would have been ok here . Effective, with Vitesse not really even getting to the levels of the first leg. Hopefully the yellow cards won't be a problem later, Stekelenburg was flawless again except for that.

I walked through the square just before and right after the trouble, and saw someone in a Feyenoord training shirt leaving the street next to the square. I didn't see any others the rest of the weekend. I also heard people talking about Saints idiots trying to join in, one punching a guy in the face after asking him if "he was Saints", and some chair chucking. Though at the same time, I had a Saints shirt on and walked right back through Korenmarkt whilst the police still had their batons drawn and they were happy to let us come and go, so we clearly weren't the main problem. Not to mention the whole day that Saints and Vitesse fans happily mixed and sodded about in the squares before and after the match.

Did she spend ages hanging around near the changing room door afterwards trying to meet players?

The wife did it - her cunning negotiating tactic to get the price down was to complain that it was really good every time I suggested less to the bloke. Still ended up with one - I'd have much preferred just a Vitesse one, but wasn't prepared to buy it when we were in their shop (which also happened after the other purchase anyway).

Yesterday's fun Yoshida brain-fart was the Cruyff turn in his own box, but then he had nothing much to deal with most of the match. Fair dos to him for looking more decent at left back than he has at centre back though - he might be a better option than Targett there, and well done to Koeman for using the Europa League to find out.

Oh and FWIW I've booked flights from Stansted to Aarhus on the Weds and back on the Fri. One night in Aarhus and one in Herning, trains there and back.

No, they're using analytics (as Saints are) to steer their recruitment direction, rather than just making stuff up and claiming it as fact, like MLG does when he really doesn't know.

Southampton to Amsterdam is a propeller plane... I've been on 4 of them in the past 2 weeks.

A few reasons 1) Makes the draw quicker - they assign multiple matches from each pairing of numbers. 2) Allows people to pre-plan some trips - a group of 6 possible opponents is easier to plan than 22 possible opponents. 3) Allows the separation of teams from the same country - the main one.

Sky News are fking idiots then. We could never have drawn anyone in pot 4 because that's not how the draw works. Plus MLG never said we'd play Kairat, he ballsed up where Azerbaijan was.

I'd rather we saved going to Switzerland for the final.

EL stream is on a different page.

Just to annoy me they're drawing EL after CL this time...

Sat in Jansplaats right now.

Bloody hope not, flight faffery.

Bet we don't...

Not to mention we're not in the same pot as Qarabag either.

Don't get your Qarabag confused with your Qabala...