The9

I've seen lots of them, that still doesn't mean there aren't certain regulations we will need to meet but don't already. It's been 12 years, things will have changed since we were last in Europe and we weren't exactly considering UEFA stadium regulations for the first 9 of those. We might not need them until the group stage or knockout when the media requirements might up a bit, but I doubt there are NO changes the club could make to improve the facilities relating to European competition. Plus the club have already said they're making changes, they'll already know what they can do better with. I look forward to your next facilities update just so I can point out which of them relate to UEFA regulations to you.

Rich I ain't, but hell yes my priorities are properly sh!tted up. I'm not actually sure what I want - I think a nice Baltic state or somewhere near but different will be good for the 3QR, then as long as we get someone beatable in the next round I don't care where it is. After that, Group stages are more likely to be bigger clubs with decent transport links. As for the ground, me too, but we should probably save Turkish the time of needing to remind us people may have seen us mention it before. Then again, I've scored at St Mary's and Dean Court too, two Prem grounds.

As for Sotonians, if there was a clique on here it was the loungers who've all buggered off, who aside from Bearsy and occasionally Tokyo, I mostly found incredibly dull anyway. There was a time I used to come on here (or predecessor sites) and rarely post in the Main Bored at all, but the lack of genuinely worthwhile nonsense in here or muppet show left me having to talk about football all the time (oh noes). Still, vacuums don't last and a new form of entertainment will fill the hole. Hopefully it won't just be threads discussion other threads elsewhere.

FWIW I've found CB Fry an equal opportunities poster when it comes to his cutting comments. He generally targets people spouting tangible cobblers and takes the p155 out of it. If he takes the p155 out of you more than anyone else, one I hadn't noticed and two, that could be linked to you posting more cobblers than most. Please note, I'd say this to anyone on here, but not everyone on here is whining about specific other posters.

Which is why they sign for the top teams and not us.

JWP's wages are way too low for a start, that kid's amaaaaaazing in FM15 (and totally overrated, just like all the England U21s always are). Tbf they have lots of different methods and sources for wage deals which aren't just unabomber shut-in stinky bedroom crusty tissue kids' guesswork. I just don't know what they are.

Well, he already said they'd be changing some of the interior. Guessing there are certain Europa League regulations we might need to catch up on - they'll be really annoyed that we don't have anywhere good to hang their UEFA banners inside the ground for a start...

Heh, I am amused.

Not forgetting:

"I think when we go through a full season with 100 per cent occupancy then you can have those conversations," sayeth Ralph the Oracle. ...and 95% of people on this forum for the past 4 years.

Are they allowed to move it? Andorra's national stadium has a 4G pitch and a bigger capacity, that would have to be preferable for them. Fairly easy to get to from Barcelona.

Things I don't like from the Q1R draw: Georgia v Azerbaijan tie Kazakhstan v Israel tie - both putting some way-too-long haul sides into the 2QR. West Ham's gimme. Things I like: Luxembourg v Wales Malta v Wales keeping interesting but tangibly poor teams in it until the next round (I mean Luxembourg and Malta, I assure you getting to Bala is probably more hassle than anything west of Germany, north of St Etienne and east of Spain).

With Differdange drawing Bala, suewhistle's dream tie is slightly closer...

K Billy mentioned Stekelenberg was "in town" yesterday...

Comical.

Mentioned in post 34. (And on the previous two threads about this stuff).

West Ham will be playing one of this lot: Qäbälä FK (AZE) KF Renova (MNE) FC Lusitans (AND) Newtown AFC (WAL) FK Olimpic Sarajevo (BIH) I suspect they'll be begging for Newtown or Lusitans of Andorra for convenience.

Well, all the teams are in Reykjavic so that should help!

Money and trophies. If we can find a breed of footballer who absolutely doesn't care about maximising their income for the limited career they have, and values loyalty incredibly highly once he's signed for Saints but not beforehand, well that would be just super. If we get success it MIGHT persuade someone to stay. Failing that, vague hopes of players wanting to play regularly and that being something we can offer are as good as it gets. Even the kids we bring through want to leave because they know they're being underpaid by virtue of us having negotiated their first contract when they were nobody. Lets not delude ourselves that players at Europa League standard clubs give the remotest crap about the "recruitment process" the second after it has delivered them to (for instance) our club. Once they're here, that process just becomes the thing that replaces them. Why would they even want it to be good? Even when Rooney showed a vague interest a few years back and claimed Man U needed to invest in the squad it was only to give him a reason for potentially leaving a club that was in a Champions League Final near the time. Football is a meritocracy, the top players get the most money from the most wealthy clubs with very few exceptions. The best we can do is get ourselves into that discussion and try and make marginal gains year on year until Europe is as expected for us as it is the other 6 sides we shared the top 7 with last season.

A quick break down of Visa Requirements: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_European_Union_citizens PLEASE NOTE THIS IS FOR INFORMATION ONLY, YOU MUST CHECK FOR YOURSELVES BEFORE TRAVELLING, AND I WILL NOT BE HELD LIABLE FOR GENERAL ASSHATTEDNESS ON THIS FRONT, DEPORTATION, SALT MINES, KIDNAPPING OR ANY STATELESS SCENARIOS LIKE THAT ONE IN THE FILM THE TERMINAL. Visas Required for EU residents: Azerbaijan Belarus (though they do limited visa on arrival if documents are with them 3 days before travel) Russia Visas Required for UK citizens (but not all EU residents) Turkey (can apply online; also limited visa on arrival, being phased out). TBC Kazakhstan (pre-approved visa pick-up has been possible previously, a visa-free pilot is running until 15 July 2015) Visas not required for EU citizens: basically everywhere else EU Countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom (inc Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales) Non-European UEFA nations: Armenia, Georgia, Israel. Non-EU UEFA nations: Albania, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Faroe Islands, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Monaco, San Marino, Serbia, Ukraine Non-EU UEFA nations who are European Free Trade Agreement Members: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway. Non-EU UEFA nations who have a separate freedom of movement agreement: Switzerland. Non-EU nations in disputed areas who probably haven't got teams in this anyway: Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Kosovo, South Ossetia, Transnistria. Non-EU UEFA nations who are an overseas territory of the UK: Gibraltar I think that's everywhere...

First Qualifying Round draw later today btw, that should start to give us an idea of who isn't getting anywhere (and can be greyed out [?]) on the map? And yeah, I know what a pain it can be to change all the icons.

Oh and JWP is abso-ferking-lutely ridiculously overrated, and England always win the Euros and the World Cup in my simmed games, you really need to get your heads out of your collective SI-ar5es on how good English players actually are.

I paid £10 for it just to see what's different from 2013. Basically for me, the answer is that now it's an absolute pain in the jacksie to edit because they've taken away the opportunity to save and read files in .xml, which is the easy way It also means that my 2013 files which have some quirks in them (eg created team histories with renaming) now can't be edited, so my simmed 2133 season has a load of "as X" and "as Y" history name glitches all over it and I can't remove them using FM15 because the .xml was created in 2013 and the file I've saved for 2015 has a load of changes on top of it already before I noticed the problem. The usual crap then. Beats me how they keep getting away with these user-unfriendly changes when the fanbase and editing is all that keeps it going. I do like being able to drop graphics in unfaffed, but the ever-changing IDs for created players and teams in a big db are still a massive pain too. It really can't be hard to keep each year's created players completely separate from the auto-generated IDs can it?

So, this is the first summer where they've been able to pay money to sign players, right? Which is why it's so jarring that they actually are? Because 1) they haven't been able to for ages 2) no-one in their division actually BUYS players and 3) they're about to do exactly the same thing again, aren't they? Chucking money at players they can't afford, running up debts they can't pay, and ignoring the need to pay for an infrastructure. The only difference is that throwing money at players in the lower leagues just gets you overpriced journeymen who were good once but aren't any more. And there are loads of kids who give you plenty more for your money, if you've got the infrastructure to develop them.

I can wait for his irrelevant, off-topic, argument-changing misdirection of a response. Fortunately my rising age (if not maturity) has finally allowed me to let everything, even the Boxing Day discussions, to slide. I just let idiots be idiots nowadays and let everyone else point it out.