The9

Which is very much something that wasn't clear at the end of July last year.

Though actually, I've had a quick look, and they can do turnaround for a Russian visa next working day if you pay them enough... although the £100 for the visa itself, plus additional sums for delivery, passport return and need to actually visit the embassy to provide biometric information seem to be a tad tricky.

I somehow doubt Sherwood will make the mistake of playing that defence on the halfway line again, though if he's reading this, it would be a REALLY GOOD IDEA.

Draw for 3QR is 17th July, first leg is 30th July, that would be REALLY pushing it.

We won't in the 3rd Qualifying Round, which is the point Dortmund would enter if they don't win the DFB Pokal. We would also be seeded at that point. There is the possibility we could draw them in the next round IF we both get through AND there are a lot of CL drop-ins who have better coefficients along with a lot of survivors which already had better coefficients. But they can also go straight to the Group Stages if they win the Pokal (German Cup). "Either Schalke 04 or Borussia Dortmund will enter the group stage instead of the third qualifying round. Schalke 04 will enter the group stage if Wolfsburg win the 2014–15 DFB-Pokal. Borussia Dortmund will enter the group stage if they win the cup."

Only in the sense that you can't draw anyone from your own country. We could easily end up in Azerbaijan or Israel (Ironi Kiryat Shmona are in 3rd Qualifying Round with a low coefficient). Unlikely an Azeri team (Gabala or Neftchi Baku, as it happens) would get that far though, just as likely to be playing Airbus UK / Newtown / Bala from Wales who also start in 1st Qualifying Round. To give you some idea of the standard of some of those clubs, the Welsh Premier League sides don't usually get to the 2nd Qualifying Round, and I'm comfortable in saying they're around bottom half Conference South standard.

Should we get through the 3rd Qualifying Round, we'd then go into the Europa League Play-Off Round with the other 28 winners plus the 15 losers of the Champions League 3rd Qualifying Round. 44 teams in all. Obviously that's more difficult to work out, as no idea who the 15 CL 3rd QR knocked out teams are or which of the other sides will go through and whether they'd be seeds or not in the previous round, but a lot of the teams dropping in are likely to be previous champions and have previous coefficient points from CL, so more likely to outrank Saints. Last year there were more teams in the pre-Group stages, but working out the approximate numbers... 22/62 teams in that round (about 1/3 had scores of over 17). That's actually better than I thought, and gives a decent chance of Saints being seeded. But we're a long way from knowing whether we'd be seeded or not in that final pre-group qualifying. Anyway, in the Group Stages there will be 22 winners from EL PlayOff Round, plus 10 losers of CL Play-Off Round, plus these 16: England Tottenham Hotspur Coeff. 84.078 Spain Sevilla Coeff. TBD Portugal Braga Coeff. 51.776 Italy Fiorentina Coeff. TBD Belgium Anderlecht Coeff. 47.440 Turkey Beşiktaş Coeff. 36.520 Russia Lokomotiv Moscow Coeff. 23.099 Germany Augsburg Coeff. 15.883 Netherlands Groningen Coeff. 8.695 Spain Winners of 2014–15 Copa del Rey England Winners of 2014–15 FA Cup Germany Winners of 2014–15 DFB-Pokal Italy Fourth or fifth-placed team of 2014–15 Serie A France Winners of 2014–15 Coupe de France Ukraine Winners of 2014–15 Ukrainian Cup or third-placed team of 2014–15 Ukrainian Premier League Greece Third-placed team of 2014–15 Superleague Greece All of those teams will be drawn (via a far more complicated seeding pot process) into groups of 4 (6 fixtures, playing everyone else in the group home and away) with the top 2 from each group to go into the Europa League Last 32 along with the 8 CL Group stage 3rd place teams.

The 33 Second Qualifying Round winners from above are joined by the 25 teams (including Saints) who go directly into the 3rd Qualifying Round: This is all assuming Villa don't win the Cup of course. At this stage there can only be the 2 teams from earlier in the competition plus 6 or 7 others with coefficients of more than Saints' score (plus West Ham), and with only 11 teams still to be decided so at most 20-ish seeded teams ahead of Saints. As there are 58 teams in this round, Saints would be seeded to play one of the teams with the lowest 29 coefficient scores. Germany Schalke 04 Coeff. 111.883 or Borussia Dortmund Coeff. 99.883 Spain Villarreal or Athletic Bilbao Coeff. TBD France Marseille Coeff. 55.483 Netherlands AZ Coeff. 46.695 Belgium Standard Liège Coeff. 25.440 Portugal Vitória de Guimarães Coeff. 17.776 England SAINTS (Coeff. tbc but around 17-ish) France Saint-Étienne Coeff. 16.983 Portugal Belenenses Coeff. 12.276 Ukraine Vorskla Poltava Coeff. TBD Ukraine Zorya Luhansk Coeff. TBD Czech Republic Jablonec Coeff. 9.325 Israel Ironi Kiryat Shmona coeff. 7.200 Italy Sixth-placed team of 2014–15 Serie A Russia Third-placed team of 2014–15 Russian Premier League Russia Fourth-placed team of 2014–15 Russian Premier League Netherlands Winners of 2014–15 Eredivisie Europa League play-offs Turkey Fourth-placed team of 2014–15 Süper Lig Greece Fourth-placed team of 2014–15 Superleague Greece Switzerland Winners of 2014–15 Swiss Cup Switzerland Third-placed team of 2014–15 Swiss Super League Austria Winners of 2014–15 Austrian Cup Austria Third-placed team of 2014–15 Austrian Football Bundesliga Czech Republic Winners of 2014–15 Czech Cup Romania Winners of 2014–15 Cupa României or runners-up of 2014–15 Liga I

Half the teams in the First Qualifying Round will be seeded to face the half who are unseeded, the 52 winners will be joined by these 14 in the Second Qualifying Round: (Only 2 of these teams are likely to have a better coefficient than Saints). Denmark Copenhagen Coeff. 40.960 Poland Legia Warsaw Coeff. 24.800 Croatia Rijeka Coeff. 13.700 Romania Astra Giurgiu Coeff. 9.759 Belarus Dinamo Minsk Coeff. 9.650 Cyprus AEK Larnaca Coeff. 8.460 Israel Hapoel Be'er Sheva Coeff. 4.700 Belgium Winners of 2014–15 Belgian Pro League Europa League play-offs Turkey Fifth-placed team of 2014–15 Süper Lig Greece Fifth-placed team of 2014–15 Superleague Greece Switzerland Fourth-placed team of 2014–15 Swiss Super League Austria Fourth-placed team of 2014–15 Austrian Football Bundesliga Czech Republic Fourth-placed team of 2014–15 Czech First League Scotland Winners of 2014–15 Scottish Cup

To add a bit more detail - currently no team in the First Qualifying Round has a coefficient more than Saints would have (though West Ham might well have the same score and it could be better if they have a recent European record I've forgotten about): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_UEFA_Europa_League#Group_stage First qualifying round The draw for the first qualifying round will be held on 22 June 2015. The first legs will be played on 2 July, and the second legs will be played on 9 July 2015. A total of 104 teams are expected to play in the first qualifying round. Moldova Sheriff Tiraspol Coeff. 14.500 Norway Rosenborg Coeff. 11.875 Sweden Elfsborg Coeff. 11.545 Croatia Hajduk Split Coeff. 11.200 Cyprus Apollon Limassol Coeff. 10.460 Cyprus Omonia Coeff. 10.460 Slovakia Slovan Bratislava Coeff. 9.250 Sweden AIK Coeff. 9.045 Azerbaijan Neftchi Baku Coeff. 9.000 Slovakia Žilina Coeff. 8.750 Kazakhstan Aktobe Coeff. 8.575 Netherlands Go Ahead Eagles Coeff. 8.195 Serbia Red Star Belgrade Coeff. 7.775 Denmark Brøndby Coeff. 7.460 Belarus Shakhtyor Soligorsk Coeff. 7.150 Georgia (country) Dinamo Tbilisi Coeff. 6.875 Serbia Vojvodina CC: 6.275 Slovakia Spartak Trnava Coeff. 6.250 Iceland FH Coeff. 6.100 Sweden IFK Göteborg Coeff. 6.045 Norway Strømsgodset Coeff. 5.875 Iceland KR Coeff. 5.600 Romania Botoșani Coeff. 5.259 Republic of Ireland Shamrock Rovers Coeff. 5.150 Luxembourg F91 Dudelange Coeff. 5.025 Azerbaijan Inter Baku Coeff. 5.000 Northern Ireland Linfield Coeff. 4.975 Malta Valletta Coeff. 4.841 Luxembourg Differdange 03 Coeff. 4.775 Republic of Macedonia Rabotnički CC: 4.675 Belarus Torpedo-BelAZ Zhodino Coeff. 4.650 Scotland Aberdeen Coeff. 4.580 Moldova Dacia Chișinău Coeff. 4.500 Slovenia Koper Coeff. 4.475 Republic of Ireland St Patrick's Athletic Coeff. 4.400 Israel Beitar Jerusalem Coeff. 4.200 Faroe Islands HB Coeff. 3.950 Montenegro Budućnost Podgorica Coeff. 3.875 Malta Birkirkara Coeff. 3.591 Scotland Inverness CT Coeff. 3.580 Slovenia Domžale Coeff. 3.475 Liechtenstein Vaduz Coeff. 3.450 Serbia Čukarički Coeff. 3.275 Slovenia Celje Coeff. 3.225 Hungary Ferencváros Coeff. 3.200 Estonia Flora Tallinn Coeff. 3.200 Latvia Skonto Coeff. 3.100 Faroe Islands Víkingur Gøta Coeff. 2.950 Republic of Macedonia Renova Coeff. 2.925 Norway Odd Coeff. 2.875 Albania Kukësi Coeff. 2.825 Azerbaijan Gabala Coeff. 2.750 Republic of Macedonia Shkëndija Coeff. 2.675 Kazakhstan Kairat Coeff. 2.575 Kazakhstan Ordabasy Coeff. 2.575 Moldova Tiraspol Coeff. 2.500 Hungary MTK Budapest Coeff. 2.450 Armenia Shirak Coeff. 2.300 Montenegro Mladost Podgorica Coeff. 2.125 Armenia Ulisses Coeff. 2.050 Northern Ireland Glentoran Coeff. 1.975 Finland VPS Coeff. 1.890 Georgia (country) Dinamo Batumi Coeff. 1.875 Estonia Sillamäe Kalev Coeff. 1.700 Andorra Lusitanos Coeff. 1.666 Finland SJK Coeff. 1.640 Finland Lahti Coeff. 1.640 Iceland Víkingur Reykjavík Coeff. 1.600 Latvia Jelgava Coeff. 1.600 Faroe Islands NSÍ Runavík Coeff. 1.450 Andorra Sant Julià Coeff. 1.416 Lithuania Atlantas Coeff. 1.400 Northern Ireland Glenavon Coeff. 1.225 Republic of Ireland Cork City Coeff. 1.150 Republic of Ireland UCD Coeff. 1.150 Lithuania Kruoja Pakruojis Coeff. 1.150 San Marino La Fiorita Coeff. 1.099 Wales Airbus UK Broughton Coeff. 1.075 Albania Partizani Tirana Coeff. 1.075 Luxembourg Progrès Niederkorn Coeff. 1.025 Lithuania Trakai Coeff. 0.900 Latvia Liepāja Coeff. 0.850 Malta Balzan Coeff. 0.841 Wales Bala Town Coeff. 0.825 Wales Newtown Coeff. 0.575 San Marino Folgore Coeff. 0.349 Denmark Third or fourth-placed team of 2014–15 Danish Superliga Croatia Fourth-placed team of 2014–15 Croatian First Football League Poland Runners-up of 2014–15 Ekstraklasa Poland Third-placed team of 2014–15 Ekstraklasa Bulgaria Winners of 2014–15 Bulgarian Cup Bulgaria Runners-up of 2014–15 A PFG Bulgaria Third-placed team of 2014–15 A PFG Hungary Fourth-placed team of 2014–15 Nemzeti Bajnokság I Georgia (country) Winners of 2014–15 Georgian Cup Bosnia and Herzegovina Winners of 2014–15 Bosnia and Herzegovina Football Cup Bosnia and Herzegovina Runners-up of 2014–15 Premier League of Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina Third-placed team of 2014–15 Premier League of Bosnia and Herzegovina Montenegro Runners-up of 2014–15 Montenegrin First League Albania Winners of 2014–15 Albanian Cup Armenia Fourth-placed team of 2014–15 Armenian Premier League Estonia Winners of 2014–15 Estonian Cup Gibraltar Winners of 2015 Rock Cup England West Ham United Fair Play berth

Seeding is based on a club coefficient, they seed half the teams in each round based on that coefficient so a seeded team always plays an unseeded team (in every round) - I'm doing a bit of research based on recent scores and to me it looks like we'd be seeded in the 3rd QR and possibly not in the Play Off round. If we get into the Europa League, our coefficient score will be about 17, similar to Hull's as they also had England's score plus nothing extra for not being in Europe recently - but since last year the number of teams in the various rounds and the proportion of teams falling into the EL from the CL has changed. So whilst Hull were seeded for both rounds, we could end up unseeded for the playoff round with 15 CL 3rd Q losers (all likely to be recent European qualifiers with decent previous records) of the 44 teams (rather than the 15 of 62 it was last year).

There is an element of the Moneyball theory which says to sign players you have identified, when they are available, if the cost is acceptable. Long for £12m was obviously acceptable to the club given that he was on their list.

At this exact moment in time it could be anywhere between 0 (Villa win the FA Cup) and 19 (reach the Final from the 3rd Qualifying Round), extra matches, which is the problem. The Europa League Play Off Round is complete on 27th August, which leaves a few days to complete any pending transfers to add to squad depth should we make the Group stages.

On July 28th 2014 we had lost the manager who had brought a very specific style that had pushed us out of the relegation discussion, had lost first choice players in Shaw, Lallana, Lovren, Lambert, plus an occasional starter and future prospect in Chambers. Basically half a team. We'd brought in relative unknowns in Pelle and Tadic who might not have been good enough, and a manager with enough failures on his managing CV to worry people and no knowledge of the English game. The previous season's top scorer Rodriguez was out for at least a few more months, and we'd looked pretty mediocre in the last few months of the previous season anyway. The club externally seemed to be in turmoil, there was every reason to think Schneiderlin could also leave or might be sidelined all season for disciplinary reasons, it was before we signed Bertrand, Forster, Alderweireld, Gardos, Mane, or Long, and it could have gone very wrong with only a few mistakes. I guess the best way to look at it is "where would we have finished with a team of Boruc; Clyne, Yoshida, Fonte, Targett; Wanyama, Davis; Ward-Prowse, Ramirez, Tadic; Pelle - and a bunch of kids on the bench". For 38 matches. That's at best a mid-table/bottom-half side even if they don't have any suspensions or injuries, and it has no depth.

As far as "dithering" goes, we can't exactly formulate a final transfer plan when we don't know if we need to plan for Europa League qualifiers or not.

Doesn't mean he isn't "officially released" at the end of this season though.

At that price I'd sign Clasie even if Schneiderlin doesn't leave.

Makes me laugh, like no-one's ever heard of him or something!

Anything related to having a box for a head. https://storify.com/lazlo78/square-head-competition

Because he was a loanee and now he's their player. Not hard to understand how signing a player who has just contributed to getting you promoted, who already has experience at that level, is a good signing. The alternative was chucking money at a different keeper who doesn't have the benefit of knowing the squad and setup.

Well, the handball by Fonte against Newcastle when they were still in the top half NEARLY makes the list but it's still nowhere near the impact of the awful decisions by Friend against Liverpool.

I disagree on both. Elia could easily come on another season-long loan if Werder can't get anyone to pick him up for money, he's showed what he can do when motivated, he needs a pre-season for fitness and then see how he fits in. We need fringe players we know can do a job who are manageable within our budget, and he'll be good value. Though the need for depth is reduced if Villa win the FA Cup. Djuricic has improved with appearances, and looks a lot less ghost-like than he did in his first couple of matches. He's started getting a handle on matches and making an impact. He was unlucky to be subbed on Sunday and played well. He's creative and his range of passing is opening up as he gets used to Prem pace. We can just keep assuming there are Prem players in waiting in the U21s - I don't see many stepping up at the moment. Gallagher and McQueen maybe, possibly Sims after that - admittedy McQueen/Sims coming through reduces the need to keep Elia, but neither have got a look in yet.

Yeah, hi, I'm saying they are, and I'd keep them both (or at least get them in on loan again next year). Perfect squad players who are integrated with the squad and have Europa experience if we need it. To be honest, if we sign better players than we have, they'd be off the bottom of the list, but neither of them had a pre-season with us and Djuricic has only started looking decent in the last few weeks. They've both acclimatised now and offer something different to what we have. Neither has been any less effective than Ward-Prowse, for instance.

I'd take either Elia or Djuricic over Ramirez at this point.

Goalkeepers Forster-8 Davis-7 Gazzaniga-7 Defenders Clyne-8 Fonte-9 Alderweireld-9 Yoshida-5 Gardos-5 Bertrand-8 Targett-6 Midfielders Davis-7 Wanyama-9 Reed-6 JWP-6 Morgan-10 Tadic-7 Djuricic-6 Attackers Pelle-7 Mane-8 Long-7 Elia-6