stevegrant

Each club's coefficient score is based on the points they have earned in the previous five years plus 20% of the nation coefficient score. As we hadn't played in Europe in the previous 5 years, our score was entirely comprised of that 20%, which gave us a score of 16.078 (from a total of 80.39). HOWEVER, the first of the five years that were counted for this season's score (2010/11) was a particularly good year for English clubs in Europe, and that score will drop off of the scale this summer. If Liverpool were to lose to Sevilla in the Europa League final, the total English coefficient for 2015/16 (basically all the coefficient points earned by the 8 competing clubs divided by the number of clubs) will be 14.25, or 14.5 if they win it. That compares to the 18.357 we earned in 2010/11, which will no longer count. Quite a steep drop, hence why there was a concern about losing a Champions League place to Italy - as it turns out, English clubs outperformed Italian clubs this year, but Italy gains another 4 points on us NEXT summer, so it's pretty important our clubs do better across the board next season. If Liverpool lose the EL final, the overall score for English clubs will be 76.284, or 76.309 if they win. 20% of that is either 15.257 or 15.262. We earned a whopping 2.5 points in this season's competition, so our score will be either 17.757 or 17.762 if we qualify - a reasonable increase because we get to use 100% of our own points, and 20% of the nation's score.

Nope. If we finish 6th, we'd DEFINITELY want Man United to win the FA Cup as then the 6th place in the league would be an automatic group stage spot.

No Europa League places available for that anymore, the prize is purely financial. Edit: seems we're joint top. With everyone. http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/matchday/fair-play.html

Well the first of those is already out. I think, also, that there is a bit of small print in the UEFA qualifying criteria that states that if the winner of the Europa League also finishes in a position that would get them back in that competition, we actually lose a EL slot, which seems **** to me, but that's what the rule implies. Far too many permutations to list, but realistically the only team above us we're actually supporting in any real capacity is Man United in the FA Cup final. Liverpool winning the Europa League is meaningless - we just need them to falter in the league so we can finish above them (or West Ham/Man United, possibly, but that's even more unlikely).

Quite surprised that they appear to have just accepted it and paid up, considering that QPR are still fighting their fine.

The rules have changed since then. A country can have a maximum of 5 teams in the Champions League now, but only 4 can qualify via the league. If the current rules were in place back then, Spurs would have still qualified for the playoff round, with Chelsea going into the group stage as a top seed.

You have far too much time and money on your hands, Trev

Personally reckon Benteke would be an amazing signing for us, would fit our system nicely, and could be one final merking of the Liverpool finance department if we were able to get him on favourable terms (i.e. nowhere near the £32.5m they paid for him less than a year ago)

Not much we can do when the player doesn't want to sign his name on our contract.

****ing hell, you're tedious. Don't want to go? Don't go. I doubt anyone will give two ****s. Claus paid for the pitch hire and staffing - nothing out of the ordinary there, I'm sure the group in charge of organising Kelvin's testimonial are doing likewise.

When he's given time to think about things, he'll make the wrong decision quite often. When he acts on instinct, he'll usually make the right decision. When he's on his game, he's a fantastic player - see the first half of last season when he managed to put a run of performances together - but when he's not he is incredibly frustrating. Still definitely worth persevering with, IMO.

Considering the Mirror scandalously agreed to Newcastle's ludicrous demand of paying them to be their "exclusive news partner", it's fair to assume that that £8m release clause story is accurate.

Not that this has anything to do with the actual thread, but are you saying you wouldn't pay £85 for an FA Cup final ticket?

To give credit where it's due, Townsend has been excellent for Newcastle since signing for them. Proof that there is talent in there somewhere, just the application and consistency has been lacking at times.

Also done if Spurs lose at Chelsea next Monday.

That game reminded me of us under Pochettino, dominate for an hour, miss a load of chances to kill the game off against defensive opposition, run out of ideas, concede a sloppy goal and fail to win the game. Looking forward to him telling Kane, Alli, Alderweireld and Lloris that they should all **** off now as they won't get a better opportunity...

We have a winner... Thanks to everyone for entering, we had 87 entries, most of which were not a million miles away - 59 within 2000 of the official attendance of 29729. Very well done to the five guesses within 100, and three within 30! pangy was 29 away, LGTL was 27 away, but the winner, just 21 away from the correct figure, is Hatch. Congratulations, I will be in touch shortly with details on how to claim your prize

As stated above, not this year, and there's already an event running that people can join.

Just as a heads-up, in case you hadn't noticed, there is the opportunity to play at St Mary's THIS summer in the stickied thread at the top of this forum. The prices there are pretty much identical to what we'd be charging for our own game if it goes ahead next year, but there's no guarantee that our one will happen - there needs to be the availability (the club will always offer it to the organisations who did it the previous year first), and there needs to be time in my schedule to organise it, which is far from guaranteed You also get to play alongside some club legends rather than just plebs like me

Yep, certainly, but it's a particular weirdness that while what everyone sees has been visibly wasteful in front of goal, the actual return of points is likely to have actually improved away from home. It goes without saying that we'd always be looking to improve in all areas where possible - defensively I think we're in a pretty good place, as per the last couple of years, but despite having quite a lot of attacking players, they all seem to blow hot and cold. Austin, when he's had a couple of starts, hasn't really shown a great deal outside the box, which would be fine if we were creating loads of chances for him, but Mané and Tadic have been off the boil for long periods, so he's looked a bit lost. Long's been our stand-out attacking player all season, and this is a guy many people were demanding we should get rid of only a few months ago. Just throwing this one out there, given the rumours related to both players, but how about Benteke as a replacement for Pelle in the summer, if we do get a decent enough offer from someone in Italy? Klopp clearly doesn't want him, and they'd have to take one hell of a haircut on the fee they paid a year ago, it could be our final merking of Liverpool's finance department

The numbers (Home-Draw-Away): 2012/13: 166-108-106 (44%-28%-28%) 2013/14: 179-78-123 (47%-21%-32%) 2014/15: 172-93-115 (45%-25%-30%) 2015/16: 135-93-110 (40%-27%-33%) [42 games to play] So overall, teams at home have been slightly weaker over the past three years - Villa being extraordinarily **** (previous bottom teams earned 23 and 20 points at home compared to Villa's 10) and Chelsea slumping from being unbeaten with 15 home wins to only 5 wins are massive outliers this season, though, which may skew the figures a touch. There are very few teams who you'd have any confidence in setting a game plan up to defend first these days. Even the likes of West Brom have been pretty porous despite very obvious game plans away from home. Defending just isn't a particularly high standard across the leagues now, which means that teams who do things right at the other end prosper more than they did a few years ago, IMO. However, the handful of teams who CAN defend properly - us, Leicester, Spurs, Man United - have got their rewards at times this season even when the strikers haven't been firing.

I'd largely agree, but having seen the 40-odd minutes of Sky highlights from the Everton game, it looked like Tadic had a rare away performance where he was effective from start to finish. Not worth analysing our away record from our first PL spell, pretty much always terrible, lucky to get 2 or 3 away wins a season. Since we've been back up: 2012/13: 3-7-9 (23-36) 16pts 2013/14: 7-5-7 (22-23) 26pts 2014/15: 7-2-10 (17-20) 23pts 2015/16: 5-6-6 (14-16) 21pts Win at Villa on Saturday, which we really should do, and we'll have actually gained more points away from home this season compared to last season, with a game to spare. Certainly, away performances have tended to be solid rather than spectacular, but sometimes the bottom line tells you a different story compared to what your eyes see.

An unexpectedly positive performance in the end. Basically one awful session in the morning of day two might even have cost us a winning opportunity.

Their last 4 games: Wycombe home - still going for the playoffs, but have drawn 4 of the last 5 Wimbledon away - another direct rival Hartlepool away - midtable, nothing to play for Northampton home - already champions, still going for 100 points. Not easy by any means...

:lol: Just to compound matters, Wimbledon, Accrington and Plymouth are all winning as well, so as things stand they're 8 points off 3rd, while a goal for Wycombe and a turnaround for Exeter would see them looking over their shoulders as well.