The9

Looking at that list of capacities above, Odds 12500 is the BIGGEST ground we're potentially going to play at. (Don't get Qabala and Qarabag confused)... Allocation will be a sod.

http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/news/newsid=2269821.html For the info.

You'll be happy with the pot then!

Morning - they've grouped the teams again, we can now only play 7 HJK Helsinki (FIN) 8 FC Thun (SUI) 9 Astra Giurgiu (ROU) 10 Midtjylland (DEN) 11 Odds BK (NOR) 12 Qäbälä (AZE) We're number 5.

Too late, need sleep.

It makes a lot of difference if we draw Ajax, Fenerbahce, Dortmund or anyone good by our standards as opposed to UEFA's.

Another update re: seeding after a not-that great night for Saints. There will be 15 CL 3rd QR losers and 29 EL 3rd QR winners in the PO Round. The following teams will definitely be ranked below Saints in the Europa League Play Off Round (ELPOR), if there are 22 of them, Saints will be seeded. Confirmed: 1. Kairat OR Aberdeen 2. Žilina OR Vorskla Poltava 3. Debrecen OR Rosenborg 4. Thun OR Vaduz 5. Belenenses OR IFK Göteborg 6. Charleroi OR Zorya Luhansk 7. Elfsborg OR Odds 8. Apollon Limassol OR Gabala 9. AIK OR Atromitos 10. Brøndby OR Omonia Nicosia 11. Hajduk Split OR Strømsgodset 12. Krasnodar OR Slovan Bratislava 13. Milsami Orhei OR Skënderbeu Korçë 14. HJK Finland OR Astana 15. Midtjylland (lost to APOEL in CL 3QR) 16. Molde (lost to Dinamo Zagreb in CL 3QR) 17. Qarabag (lost to Celtic in CL 3QR) 18. Videoton (lost to BATE in CL 3QR) So we need another 4 results to go in our favour from the following matches, with the teams in the left column in the list below winning. Leading sides with a lower coefficient than Saints in bold. Dinamo Minsk if they beat FC Zurich (Minsk 1-0 up with home leg to play) İstanbul Başakşehir if they beat AZ Alkmaar (Alkmaar 2-0 up with away leg to play) AEK Larnaca if they beat Bordeaux (Bordeaux 3-0 up with away to play) Spartak Trnava if they beat PAOK (PAOK 1-0 up with away to play) Târgu Mureș if they beat St Etienne (St Etienne 3-0 up with home to play, forget this!) Jablonec if they beat FC Copenhagen (Copenhagen 1-0 up with home to play) Vojvodina if they beat Sampdoria (Vojvodina 4-0 up with home to play, mental, but that's all but +1) Kukësi if they beat Legia Warsaw (Legia 3-0 up - awarded, with home to play, forget this one) Sturm Graz if they beat Rubin Kazan (Rubin 3-2 up with home to play) Ironi Kiryat Shmona if they beat Slovan Liberec (Liberec 2-1 up with away to play) Wolfsberger if they beat Borussia Dortmund (Dortmund 1-0 up with home to play) Željezničar if they beat Standard Liege (Liege 2-1 up with away to play) Inter Baku if they beat Athletic Bilbao (At. Bilbao 2-0 up with away to play) Rabotnički if they beat Trabzonspor (Rabotnicki 1-0 up with away to play) Rheindorf Altach if they beat Vitoria Guimaraes (Altach 2-1 up with away to play) Astra if they beat West Ham (2-2 with home to play) - though West Ham have the same ranking as Saints they may be ranked higher on coefficient countback.

We can't get West Ham. Teams from the same country can't be drawn against each other until at least the last... 16 I think it is. After Christmas anyway. We can't get Spurs or Liverpool if we make the group stages either.

22 seeds and 22 unseeded. Even if we're unseeded, some of the seeds are still going to be worse teams than us, but not being seeded runs the risk of us drawing one of the 5 or so sides who'll really be difficult opponents (eg Dortmund, Athletic Bilbao)

It's the first time Barca have worn hoops and I hate it. Their halved shirts at least reflect their original style (as would ours, the club wore the sash, quarters and halves in the early days). I'd hate us to look like Doncaster. Stripes, and failing that sash or broad centre stripe please.

Hopefully we're also playing them just after they achieve 35 points and just after they sell all their decent players in January again?

You may also note "possibloy".

One of them already in the bag though, so 2/4. Which is about what I expected. Would leave us needing 4 upsets from the 15 games tomorrow (Vojvodina is all but done, so 3 really) and Astra beating West Ham being one of the more important ones with the uncertainty around their ranking compared to us.

So, could be Steaua dropping in (as a seed, potentially with us not seeded)... what could possibloy go rong?

Good to see UTFS catching on...

Malmo have just had a player sent off, so Red Bull Salzburg are back in with a shout, only need 1 goal...

Yes. They've used them since 1979 for seedings in UEFA competitions- on and off (in the UEFA Cup from '94-'98 for instance, but not in 2003/4 which is one of the reasons we drew Steaua in the first round). West Ham's in 2006/7 was 3.325: http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/data/method4/tcoef2007.html Our last one (2003/4 obvs) was 4.7125 - but that's irrelevant as West Ham win IF they count backwards, and we at best draw if the cut off is the last 5 years used to calculate coefficients.

We either play with 1 holding DM when we're more attack minded or 2, but there's never a 3 in that defensive position so it's never a x-3-x-x or a x-3-x-x-x. The 3 are always split across at least 2 lines in the midfield. They're either a 1 DM-2 CM (with the 2 sometimes part of a wider midfield [so 4-1-x-x]) or the more usual 2 DM-3 AM with the 2 DMs and 3 AMs (one of which might be a more attacking Mane, but even if he's up with Pelle it's either 4-2-2-1-1 or 4-2-2-2, but not 4-3-3). There are obviously nuances and formations are too dynamic for the categorisations to be fully effective any more, (I mean our FBs are hardly really part of a 4 to begin with) but I am absolutely not having that "you just pile the DM in with the other midfielders" when at least one of them is clearly more advanced and in a different role.

I don't think I've ever even seen that before. He even played for Newport County for a bit whilst disappearing.

Click the picture icon next to the roll of film - Browse to the file or add the URL if it's already online elsewhere - it'll upload it and host it on Saintsweb for you now as long as you leave the "Retrieve remote file and reference locally" tick box ticked.

2015-16 UEFA Europa League Regulations http://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/Regulations/uefaorg/Regulations/02/23/69/59/2236959_DOWNLOAD.pdf Bearing in mind both of us have the same ranking this season due to not having any previous European ranking points (and adopting the base England national coefficient which this season is 16.078 ). West Ham qualified more recently due to losing the 2006 FA Cup Final, so the first season counting backwards to meet "next most recent in which they are not equal" would be the last time those points counted, to give them more than us. In theory. They COULD say neither club has a recent enough historical record for it to count, and just draw lots if necessary.

The regulations don't refer to that.

I don't think we want to know about this.

Sounds about the right timeline, has played DM, CB and now apparently LB.