The9

It's not baffling, it's completely understandable for as long as they pay bigger wages and have more likelihood of winning trophies as a result. Of course if we want to stop players leaving we have to pay bigger wages, and we can't do that without Champions League money and a massively increased global presence, which I'm not sure we're likely to achieve in the immediate future.

Oh, fairly sure he had a source on that one.

Some tricky ties against possible unseeded teams in the 3QR, we could get FC Thun, Rosenborg, Elfsborg or FC Sheriff (though Sheriff will probably be seeded they may not be), all of whom have recent Champions League pedigree, also Slovan Bratislava and Hajduk Split who have long-standing European experience. But yeah, mostly we'd expect to win the tie. FWIW I just looked and Azerbaijan offers no Accor chain hotels, a Wednesday flight out and an overnight transfer in Latvia on the way out for about £400 (direct) return!

Pretty sure it was one of my first Saints matches, having moved to University in October 1991. Was that the game where Robert Fleck was getting "you fat b'stard" chants and he pulled his shirt up to the East Stand bench seats near the halfway line, or was that a different match?

I didn't see any change in his statements all season long, they were always about playing Champions League. He always "he'd wait and see" when the table suggested Saints might be one of those CL clubs.

We managed to keep Schneiderlin and have Clyne and Alderweireld play for us last year without even having Europa League football, what makes you think we can't sign players of a better standard now we do have that incentive?

Luckily most of them except Brondby are relatively poo® nowadays and the eastern europeans are not a patch on their iron curtain days. Going on our last European draw luck we'd (again) pull the only European Cup winners in the competition who we could actually draw at that stage, which is indeed FK Crvena Zvezda aka Red Star Belgrade. Though Dortmund are also in there we can't get them.

FWIW I think even I'd baulk at Kazakhstan. Just tapped in the commercial flights, leave London at 18:35 on Wednesday, 17 hours flight time with a layover in Moscow in order to arrive at 17:15 on matchday and then fly back at 6am on the Friday morning arriving back at Heathrow at 4pm Friday afternoon after another Moscow layover. About £500 for the privilege, this is without considering any visa faffery. And that's into Alamaty to play Aktobe or Kairat (both start in 1QR). If it's Shimkent for FC Ordabasy (also start in 1QR) it's £875 for a one stopper, or £717 for a two-stopper which basically is the same route as above plus an internal Kazakh flight. Pretty sure that would HAVE to be a charter flight jobbie, and we should be grateful all of them have to win two ties just to get to us.

Here's a list of the teams in the 3QR we CAN'T play in that round: Germany Borussia Dortmund CC: 99.883 Russia Rubin Kazan CC: 57.099 Spain Athletic Bilbao CC: 56.999 Netherlands AZ CC: 46.695 Winners of match involving Denmark Copenhagen CC: 40.960 Winners of match involving Greece PAOK CC: 40.880 Winners of match involving Turkey Trabzonspor CC: 36.520 Belgium Standard Liège CC: 25.440 Winners of match involving Poland Legia Warsaw CC: 24.800 France Bordeaux CC: 24.483 Italy Sampdoria CC: 18.102 Portugal Vitória de Guimarães CC: 17.776 France Saint-Étienne CC: 16.983 Switzerland Zürich CC: 16.875 Czech Republic Slovan Liberec CC: 16.325 England Southampton CC: 16.078 (obviously) Russia Krasnodar CC: 15.099 Winners of match involving Croatia Rijeka CC: 13.700 Portugal Belenenses CC: 12.276 Ukraine Vorskla Poltava CC: 11.033 Ukraine Zorya Luhansk CC: 10.533 Greece Atromitos CC: 10.380 And here are the teams we are more likely to be playing (lots of TBCs here due to the unseeded sides mostly coming from 2QR): Unseeded teams Winners of match involving Poland Śląsk Wrocław or first round opponent CC: ≤8.800 Winners of match involving Slovakia Žilina or first round opponent CC: ≤8.750 Winners of match involving Kazakhstan Aktobe or first round opponent CC: ≤8.575 Cyprus AEK Larnaca CC: 8.460 Winners of match involving Netherlands Go Ahead Eagles or first round opponent CC: ≤8.195 Winners of match involving Serbia Red Star Belgrade or first round opponent CC: ≤7.775 Winners of match involving Hungary Debrecen or first round opponent CC: ≤7.700 Winners of match involving Denmark Brøndby or first round opponent CC: ≤7.460 Winners of match involving Belgium Charleroi CC: 7.440 Israel Ironi Kiryat Shmona CC: 7.200 Winners of match involving Belarus Shakhtyor Soligorsk or first round opponent CC: ≤7.150 Winners of match involving Georgia (country) Dinamo Tbilisi or first round opponent CC: ≤6.875 Winners of match involving Bulgaria Litex Lovech or first round opponent CC: ≤6.850 Turkey İstanbul Başakşehir CC: 6.520 Winners of match involving Serbia Vojvodina or first round opponent CC: ≤6.275 Winners of match involving Slovakia Spartak Trnava or first round opponent CC: ≤6.250 Winners of match involving Iceland FH or first round opponent CC: ≤6.100 Romania Târgu Mureș CC: 5.259 Austria Rheindorf Altach CC: 5.135 Plus some may or may not be seeded depending on what happens in the first 2 rounds: Seeding TBD (the 7 highest coefficients from these teams/ties at the time of the 2QR will be seeded, meaning we can't play them in 3QR). Winners of match involving England West Ham United or first round opponent CC: ≤16.078 (we can't play them anyway, even if it's not West Ham and they lose in the 2QR, as the draw is made before the winner is known, but we can play "first round opponent" in the unlikely event they lose to some semi-pros in early July) Winners of match involving Moldova Sheriff Tiraspol or first round opponent CC: ≤14.500 Winners of match involving Norway Rosenborg or first round opponent CC: ≤11.875 Winners of match involving Sweden Elfsborg or first round opponent CC: ≤11.545 Winners of match involving Croatia Hajduk Split or first round opponent CC: ≤11.200 Winners of match involving Cyprus Apollon Limassol or first round opponent CC: ≤10.460 Winners of match involving Cyprus Omonia or first round opponent CC: ≤10.460 Winners of match involving Switzerland Thun CC: 10.375 Netherlands Vitesse CC: 10.195 Winners of match involving Romania Astra Giurgiu CC: 9.759 Winners of match involving Belarus Dinamo Minsk CC: 9.650 Czech Republic Jablonec CC: 9.325 Winners of match involving Slovakia Slovan Bratislava or first round opponent CC: ≤9.250 Austria Sturm Graz CC: 9.135 Winners of match involving Sweden AIK or first round opponent CC: ≤9.045 Winners of match involving Azerbaijan Neftchi Baku or first round opponent CC: ≤9.000 Winners of match involving Czech Republic Mladá Boleslav CC: 8.825 Anyway...

Happened a couple of weeks ago.

One of the more likely opponents at the moment as it happens, they're already in the 3QR AND they're already unseeded whilst we're seeded. I'd just like to extend a massive thanks to the OP for doing this, the mentalist.

And Darren Bent: And Tom Carroll: So can we just get over it now? Corporate plug, means nothing.

Yeah, how about that, Ledley King's at it as well: https://twitter.com/hashtag/FIFA16?src=hash

And this kind of thing suggests to me that Clyne may have some kind of media deal to plug FIFA, which explains why he has to tweet about it at all. Are there any other tweets from other players plugging teammates, etc? These product placement type-things tend to follow some kind of corporate template usually.

Ten seconds of research tells me that the leading options for FIFA16 cover are currently Henderson, Aguero, Kane and Courtois. Given that the competition rules state that "4. Prize(s)  One (1) winner will win One (1) Harry Kane signed Tottenham Hotspur Shirt.  One (1) winner will win One (1) Sergio Agüero signed Manchester City shirt.  One (1) winner will win One (1) Jordan Henderson signed Liverpool shirt.  One (1) winner will win One (1) Thibaut Courtois signed Chelsea FC shirt" I can conclude you can ONLY vote for those 4, and that of the 4 options he'd be most likely to support either of the English players he's actually played alongside... It's not like Pelle or Bertrand are up for the vote.

Bit late, and what do you mean "were"? Gaston's wages are well known, he was even quoted about them before he signed. Cortese ego projects, glad we've got that level of arrogance out of the process, it just creates the kind of inefficiences other clubs are held back by.

Yeah, I've backed off my Josh Sims love-in a bit since last season for exactly that reason, he'll just get leaned off everything. At the moment he's Nathan Dyer-esque and it took Dyer years to get established too, even starting at a lower level. He may be Lallana with pace, but that route to the first team is congested with players much more suited to the first team at the moment. McQueen has looked very accomplished and plays so similarly to Pelle that it's ridiculous we keep Seager up there to be honest - I just can't see how he fits the current first team system, he's being asked to play a system that doesn't suit him at all to mimic the first team. Gallagher out wide is a bit of a waste at that level but he's looking pretty decent there too, and we may as well coach the kids to play across all the attacking positions as contingency.

You do talk a load of poo don't you? Tadic isn't a goalscorer anyway, and he's a terrible penalty taker, but he's also scored goals which are not luck based. I'm not sure why you think Pelle won't improve when he's only been playing in the Prem for one season and he's only 29. Also, scoring 5 goals in the last 10 games he played is hardly falling apart. The defence was reliable until Schneiderlin and Wanyama weren't available at the same time, had nothing to do with Forster at all. A "back up" gk is a very bad idea, we already have about 3 of those. A first team goalkeeper who Forster can challenge is a must. "Keeping" Toby is tricky, when he's not our player. A(nother) decent striker is an option, but we now have 3 or 4 support strikers who can play up top - but none of them are the same style as Pelle. Steven Davis has been mostly sound, other than not being able to finish and a couple of dodgy matches where he looked under par. I have no idea why you think Juanmi doesn't fit when he plays the kind of supporting attacking role that totally suits a side pivotal on Pelle, when we've lost attacking midfielders Elia and Djuricic from the end of last season.

Reed will get a few more matches than this season, hopefully McQueen. Targett will get League Cup and FA Cup games but I don't think he'll be used much. It's possible Stephens or Turnbull might get a look in, but... Preston took them to pieces. Hesketh needs to gain 2 stone to have a hope. Not seen much of Gape tbh. Would be surprised if Gallagher wasn't used a bit more this coming season. Can't see Seager getting close unless we sign Austin, in which case we'll have a system he might be successful in - but at the moment McQueen looks more like Pelle than Pelle at certain points - but then we've just signed Juanmi and Rodriguez may be back. I don't think anyone's going to make a big step up though, it's becoming more and more difficult to integrate players the further we get from U21 standard. Maybe getting to EL Group stages will give people a chance?

Oh you've done it now... http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2008-08-08/news/football-stars-showcase-new-portsmouth-fc-kit-211517/ It was this one fwiw: http://img.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/0805/8af1007986ae22c77bfa.jpeg

Yup, non-English sides. None of which he's shown any sign of wanting to play for. Tricky one, that way he ends up training with the kids or the club sells him to the place he's planning on going anyway in January with a financial agreement to ensure he isn't out of pocket compared to the out of contract, and actually leaves, I guess.

Going from memory, but thanks for MLGing that. Trying to make the case for us signing Austin here, personally I doubt we spend that kind of wages on someone who doesn't play every match, but maybe we could use Pelle in Europa and some Prem matches Austin in certain other Prem matches. We certainly decided Long was a better option than Pelle for Chelsea away. My main concern was that if we did buy Austin we'd need to set up differently, I remember how awful we were without Lambert when he was suspended because the whole gameplan was set to chip the ball into him and feed off him, and without him there people still did the same stuff, only they were dinking to Barnard or Sharp, or whoever (in the case of Man U at home when we lost 3-2, Mayuka). You'd hope we have players smart enough to adapt, but recent history suggests they don't do tactical thinking off the cuff very well when they've been drilled in something else. Re: Mane, obviously we take availability into consideration, we know he's away, we make sure to use him more around that.

If there's evidence of dodgy financial dealings they will definitely be facing the wrath of the new lovelier post-Mawhinney Football League, the one which deducted them ten points when already relegated from L1 and didn't hold it over until the next season even though it's against their own rules. Luton's then-new owners (may even have been a fan-led consortium) got completely nailed to the wall for the previous regime's mistakes, I remember Nick Owen saying how unfair it was, but they took the punishment, got relegated out of the FL, took 5 years or so to get back, and finished above the Skates last season. I somehow doubt the current lot would want to punish a fan-run club...

You're a year behind, they didn't even flirt with relegation last season, they were just incredibly mediocre all season long. Apart from losing to Newport twice, again.

And make them a couple of million in a transfer at some point.