The9

That's assuming they 1) don't use last year's domestic aways - which we did last time and 2) they use domestic games up until the FIRST away for all group games. By December it could be very different (though they may allocate priority based on additional EL rather than domestic games, which is self-perpetuating anyway).

I think (saying that for everything now) it was 14 for Arnhem and then either 10 or 12 plus Arnhem for Denmark. But we couldn't shift Midtjylland at all due to the ticket collection constraints (which is why I think they'll do it for the first away game this time). The other thing worth considering is that the first away will be September, the last won't be until late November or December, so there's no guarantee the criteria won't change as the season progresses. They might not announce all of the away ticket eligibility immediately (though as someone with top EL from last year who may go to fewer domestic games this season due to the cost of Europe I hope they do).

I rounded up, and even used the same link.

Last season Midtjylland went down to people with 3 domestic aways so you might still be ok. All they have to do is insist on people collecting their own tickets... We only have about 1450 eligible, assuming there were around 50 non-Arnhem who did get Midtjylland from late returns from the travel club. Not all of them will be able to go, and once they're out of the equation your 12 aways put you near the top of the next batch, bearing in mind many of the 14+ etc aways from last year's eligibility are already in the first and second cohort due to going away last time.

How very convenient...

5% or not, if they're not selling out the ground we'll get plenty. Hopefully we'll get Dundalk and get to play in the Aviva stadium, should get a decent allocation then.

Just Googled, turns out we got about 600 as did Man U when they played them in the knockout round. Their away section holds about 800-900 which is where I got that from (but we didn't get that option due to segregation, though fairly sure we discussed it on here last year). http://mobile.saintsfc.co.uk/news/article/20150811-tickets-fc-midtjylland-southampton-uefa-europa-league-2610572.aspx

I (wrongly) thought we had 900 tickets in Denmark. And with the exception of a few tickets not sold via the travel club, we sold all of the Midtjylland tickets to people who went to Arnhem, so the logical thing to do is Midtjylland AND Arnhem, then one of them with 10+ domestic aways and reduce the aways until tickets are sold. Also having been to Inter last year, we'd get the whole of the upper tier at the Milan home end, which is probably where the 9000 comes from.

Spurs managed to get the fixtures out within 15 minutes last season, despite UEFA not allocating teams to their fixture position as part of the actual draw.

I keep trying to resist the temptation to say Gaston would have been ideal for the #10 position, but tbh I don't think we've had anyone suited to that role since we've been back in the Premier League - no-one is a creative attacking passer with the ability to shoot or beat players - Tadic is definitely far better out wide, Mane was a poor passer, Lambert actually strikes me as the closest thing to a creator in the hole, but he wasn't going past anyone with the ball. Lallana probably couldn't even reach the goal with a shot from that position though he had the other qualities...

We signed Austin in advance of selling Pelle and Redmond to replace Mane. Not sure how that's "have not replaced them". Our issues are to do with predictability going forward (which changing the formation for Austin to play up top *might* resolve) and a lack of first choice defensively-minded players. There's no guarantee we'll be sticking with 4-1-2-1-2 and the U23s playing 4-2-3-1 last night suggests the diamond might be temporary (just like 5 at the back and 4 in midfield was temporary last season at Watford).

The other possibility is that we're about to sign a target man and still play 4-2-3-1 throughout the club (apart from temporarily in the first team).

I hear there's no shortage of biscuits at set-pieces.

Would the fact we sold the striker that was key to our success in that formation not even be a little clue that we might need to change formation? We have no-one remotely like Pelle in the squad at the moment. Interesting that the U23s are playing 4-2-3-1 though, could be that we will retain that and sign a replacement target man.

Interesting factoid Steve-wah.

Oh, and for anyone wondering, the EL draw on Friday (which is a different day to the CL draw), is on Eurosport 1 from noon until 12:30pm. As well as the UEFA website. Computers will be used and it will make eff-all sense to most people.

Yeah, but what if it's not available? I wasn't suggesting Belfast (and Windsor Park is an absolute hole anyway), just pointing out that Dundalk isn't exactly "suburban Dublin". Though it's only an hour on the train, so the only issue is if they have to switch kick off day to Wednesday or something.

It's actually in the rules document that all teams will play with three kick-offs in each time-slot. I can't be bothered to check kick off times in eastern europe to see if they're actually CET or local (or both). The qualifiers (as usual) have different rules to the group stages.

It's definitely tv - 6pm and 8pm kick-offs local time and guaranteed 3 games for each timeslot.

My only concern on that one is that the Aviva Stadium (I believe they're calling it the Dublin Stadium for the purposes of non-advertising) might not be available on the given dates because of UEFA's requirements around dressing the ground, etc and needing a couple of days before and after when there might already be events booked. They played an earlier round somewhere else as well (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallaght_Stadium - south Dublin) - I only just realised Dundalk itself is about equidistant between Belfast and Dublin and very close to the Northern Irish border. About 50 miles-ish from each.

Guessing that as they're all evening games they don't want to be accused of encouraging the kiddies to stay out too late...

There wasn't even a queue when we got there and it was right next to the train station before we even had the chance to explore the town, couldn't have been better located for me! I thought it was very imaginative use of a ground floor window as well.

Actually, having read the article now it is clear they will be using last season's games or they wouldn't have bothered mentioning Midtjylland credit. Happy with that. This bit is interesting: The club hopes to have indicative pricing for the trips within 24 hours of the draw taking place, with full pricing confirmed within 72 hours of Friday’s draw. Worth bearing in mind for the more "exotic" locations, and also bound to put some off travelling independently.

I'm hoping they will be collection only, as it stops people letting others use their tickets. Though I think if they use Midtjylland + Arnhem attendance plus domestic aways as the initial criteria for tickets and then the second tier is domestic aways there won't be too many people complaining, we're unlikely to get a ground smaller than the one in Herning and that top tier is no more than 900 people.

No one, because we don't play like that.