The9

I think the idea is that he's injured now, but will have recovered just in time to go to the AfCoN. Because obviously he wouldn't have needed to be any good for us in between those two things. Plus as noted previously, even if Morocco won the thing, due to the FA Cup dates, he might only actually miss 2 or 3 Prem matches.

Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't. What Jim White gets told (or indeed what his very reliable sources get told) and what's actually happening aren't always the same thing. Depends if he's being fed a line to make someone else take notice. Anyway...

If anything there's more criticism of the club for stuff they either are or aren't already doing, or can't do anything about anyway, than anywhere else I've seen (except maybe the Echo comments section, and who the hell would want to go in there a second time?).

Yeah, once they've made the draw! It is a minor concern about the entire process that last season's UEFA.com draw video ends without that having taken place though. Effectively you find out who you're playing but not when immediately (even though the fixture order is fixed, as you say, our position in those fixtures isn't - just because we're pot 3 doesn't mean we're "team 3" in the fixtures). Still, as I checked earlier in the thread, Spurs had the fixture order online within 15 minutes so even if it happens "behind the scenes" it won't be a long wait for the fixtures.

Concise - green is qualified, white are games tonight, but what are the red ones? Ajax are confirmed and should be green, but AZ are playing tonight so should be white. Feyenoord are underlined too, what's that about? I assume the guy who did this is dutch? Anyway, it's basically my list but without the ties which could go either way. Mine gives the likely winners, except where it can't really be predicted.

Lol, the Wiki page will have a list of the 48 clubs in the Pots they're in. It'll be updated within seconds of the results and throughout the evening as games finish. It's already got a list of all the qualifiers and which Pots they can be in. The fact that all of the other pages can pretty much tell you who's going to be where in advance (depending on who wins) is a decided bonus. But if you really want to know, all you need is a list of the team coefficients anyway. Both these sites have the draws for every round: http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/seedel2016.html This has every round plus is right up to date: http://www.footballseeding.com/european-cups/europa-league-seeding-16-17/ Due to Ajax losing (better coefficient than us, whilst Rostov who beat them have a lower one) we're actually ranked one place lower than we were before the CL playoffs began. But with two upsets already in progress from the EL Playoff first leg that will still leave us in Pot 3.

Or just go to the EL 2016/17 Wiki page, or either of the European coefficient seeding sites, or UEFA.com.

Just updated the post from this morning with the results from the CL games. Only the 22 Europa League Playoff matches to go later today (it's 00:12) and we'll know all 48 teams for Friday's draw. FWIW I may not be around tomorrow evening to update (I'm sure you'll all cope), but there will be plenty of places to see the seeding Pots confirmed around 10pm Thursday night, and then we'll already know which 12 (or 13 if West Ham get through) teams we won't be playing in the group because they're in the same pot or from the same nation.

Yep, EFL Cup on Twitter said it was dependent on the live match finish team earlier today.

Reasonable punishment tbf. Can't go chucking around hate crimes.

Depends what you want really. Wanting Saints to draw theoretically better teams is pretty weird though.

We still only need 2 more in total, Ajax weren't one of the "green" teams.

Pretty decent article by Saints here too: http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/article/2016-17/20160822-europa-league-group-stage-draw-preview-3264023.aspx

Also reposting this, updated with Wednesday's CL Play off results, emboldened CONFIRMED qualifiers for the Europa League group stages, others dependent on a result before Friday. 12 teams per pot (hence "estimated"). Pot 1 Schalke (GER) coefficient 96.035 Zenit (RUS) 93.216 Manchester United (ENG) 82.256 Shakhtar Donetsk (UKR) 81.976 Athletic Club Bilbao (ESP) 75.142 Olympiacos (GRE) 70.940 Villarreal (ESP) 60.142 Ajax (NED) 58.112 Internazionale (ITA) 58.087 Fiorentina (ITA) 57.087 Anderlecht (BEL) 54.000 Viktoria Plzeň (CZE) 44.585 ----------------------------- Pot 2 est. AZ Alkmaar (NED) 43.612 Braga (POR) 43.116 RB Salzburg (AUT) 42.520 Roma (ITA) 41.587 Fenerbahçe (TUR) 40.920 [sparta Prague (CZE) 40.585 or Sonderjysk E] PAOK (GRE) 37.440 Steaua București (ROU) 36.576 [Genk (BEL) 36.000 or Lokomotiva Zagreb] APOEL (CYP) 35.935 [bATE Borisov (BLR) 34.000 or Astana] Standard Liège (BEL) 27.500 Saint-Étienne (FRA) 26.049 --------------------------------- Pot 3 est. Gent (BEL) 25.000 Young Boys (SUI) 24.755 Krasnodar (RUS) 24.216 Rapid Vienna (AUT) 23.520 Slovan Liberec (CZE) 22.085 [Maribor (SVN) 21.625 or Qabala] Celta Vigo (ESP) 21.142 [Maccabi Tel-Aviv (ISR) 20.225 or Hajduk Split] Feyenoord (NED) 19.112 [Austria Vienna (AUT) 19.020 or Rosenborg] Mainz (GER) 18.035 FC Zürich (SUI) 17.755 Southampton (ENG) 16.756 [West Ham United (ENG) 16.256 or Astra] Panathinaikos (GRE) 14.940 ----------------------------- Pot 4 (est) Sassuolo (ITA) 14.087 [Qarabağ (AZE) 13.475 or AIK Gothenburg] [Rosenborg (NOR) 12.850 or Austria Vienna] [Astana (KAZ) 12.575 or BATE] Nice (FRA) 12.049 Zorya Luhansk (UKR) 11.976 [Astra Giurgiu (ROU) 11.076 or West Ham] [Hajduk Split (CRO) 10.775 or Maccabi Tel-Aviv] Konyaspor (TUR) 6.920 Osmanlıspor (TUR) 6.920 [iFK Gothenburg (SWE) 6.475 or Qarabag] [Lokomotiva Zagreb (CRO) 5.775 or Genk] [Qäbälä (AZE) 5.225 or Maribor] Hapoel Beer-Sheva (ISR) 4.725 Beitar Jerusalem (ISR) 4.225 [sønderjysk E (DEN) 3.720 or Sparta Prague] Shkëndija (MKD) 2.950 Dundalk (IRL) 2.590

Update with all CL Playoff second leg results up to Thursday and all EL and PlayOff Round first leg results below: With 3 teams already ranked below us qualifying into the Group Stages (Nice, Zorya Luhansk, Konyaspor) and 12 teams per pot, but we need 9 other teams with worse coefficients than Saints to put us in Pot 3 rather than Pot 4. 2 have come from the Champions League Play-Off Round (losers drop into the EL Group stage and are marked (Q)) Dundalk(Q) lost to Legia Warsaw Celtic beat Hapoel Be'er Sheva(Q) Add the 5 matches in the EL Playoff Round where either team will have a lower coefficient than Saints: Osmanlıspor v Midtjylland (1-0) West Ham United v Astra (1-1) Red Star Belgrade v Sassoulo (0-3) Brondby v Panathinaikos (0-3) AIK Gothenburg v Qarabag (0-1) This leaves us needing 2 more results in our favour to get Saints into Pot 3: All of these EL Playoff games which if the team in bold wins will add another team with a coefficient below Saints. We need at most 2 of those to make Pot 3 (and 14 of them for Pot 2 which is extremely unlikely). Red results are against us, Green in our favour. Europa League Play-Off Round First Leg Results (winners go into the EL Group Stage) BATE Borisov v Astana (0-2) Slovan Liberec v AEK Larnaca (1-0) Olympiakos v Arouca (1-0) PAOK v Dinamo Tbilisi (3-0) Rosenborg v Austria Vienna (1-2) Saint Etienne v Beitar Jerusalem (2-1) Genk v Lokomotiva Zagreb (2-2) Rapid Vienna v Trencin (4-0) AZ Alkmaar v Vojvodina (3-0) Maribor v Qabala (1-3) Shkendija v Gent (1-2) Anderlecht v Slavia Prague (3-0) Shakhtar Donetsk v Istanbul Basaksehir (2-1) Sparta Prague v Sonderjysk E (0-0) Grasshoppers v Fenerbahce (0-3) Partizani Tirana v Krasnodar (0-4) Hajduk Split Maccabi Tel-Aviv (1-2) The current total is we have exactly the 4 results we need. So Pot 3 at the moment... just. Meanwhile over in the Champions League PlayOffs, all these teams have higher coefficients than Saints, but the losers of the tie has gone into the Group stages of the Europa League (marked (Q)): Dinamo Zagreb beat Red Bull Salzburg(Q) FC Copenhagen beat APOEL Nicosia(Q) Young Boys Bern (Q) lost to Borussia Monchengladbach Steaua Bucharest (Q) lost to Manchester City Ludogorets beat Viktoria Plzen(Q) Villarreal(Q) lost to Monaco Porto beat Roma(Q)

Yeah, and thanks to the wonder of them using consecutive numbering for the ticket sales and knowing people who bought at 9am each of the first three days I was able to work out how many tickets we were selling at each increment in last year's thread . Again this year the wife has one more away than me due to the fact a mate has an enabler ticket which doesn't count on the attended aways...

Yeah, Roma is a lot stabby stabby, would probably prefer to miss them. Sassoulo and Fiorentina are the other Italian options though (assuming qualification).

Because historically they spent their time playing football and not being in school. The advent of proper full time academies and a more responsible approach to young player education, media training and the need to retain lots of tactical information has lowered the likelihood of thick footballers, but there will still be thick footballers for as long as natural talent and application irrespective of brainpower still has a place, and there's Harry Kane to prove it.

That link is awesome. Loving that various countries describe keepers flapping at a cross as "picking berries" or similar.

I don't get all the Hesketh love. He's ok, but what you gain in his technical abilities you lose from his relative frailty. Another example of people bigging up a player when the reality is that against senior pros he is likely to get leaned off everything. Ward-Prowse has far better strength, and just started to show some forward passing options in preseason which suggest he's still developing his game. He's tended to make big leaps forward when focusing on specific things, like when he suddenly became good at free kicks one summer... He'll get plenty of matches in the Prem/Europa weeks as Højbjerg is ahead of him and we have the option to rotate players with a decent level of Prem experience for some with more European knowledge.

Tadić has always been at his most effective for Saints in big games, out wide, crossing the ball. He rarely slides a pass which opens a defence but he can put in a killer cross for a player with Pellè's qualities. I don't see much benefit from trying to shoehorn him into the middle. Then again with the current bunch of shortarses anything in the air is a waste of time too.

Hasn't that been the problem?

A Dave Merrington special, the" what Saints don't want to do... ".

Early doors was Big Ron Atkinson first, which suggests it goes way back. He was using it when Hoddle was still playing, for some reason it became a football version of "early days". I basically hate anything Jonathan Pearce says, and rather than having a problem with specific phrases it's the overall desperate need to try and make events match a pre-formed narrative that annoys me. Viz Paul Pogba apparently being superb on Friday when my eyes told me he made 2 decent runs in tight space and gave the ball away A LOT for a bloke in a defensive midfield position.

I have some bad news for you, using Pamplemousse's map, Slovan Liberec is the nearest team left to Berlin and they're in the Czech Republic. Hertha went out in the qualifiers. Though on the bright side there might be a Champions League game? I haven't checked that.