stevegrant

You seem surprised that a spike in demand would see the prices increase. Why do you think loads of us were booking stuff within 15 minutes of the draw?

****ing terrible draw

Aberdeen probably heading to Kazakhstan

No, every team's coefficient is fixed for the duration of the competition to the figure calculated at the end of last season, so ours will remain at 16.078 for the duration of this season, but will be higher next season unless every English team gets buggered in both competitions this season. How much higher largely depends on our own performance. If we get knocked out in 3Q, we only get 1 coefficient point of our own, 1.5 for playoff round elimination, and then we get 2 points per group stage win and 1 point for a draw (with a guaranteed minimum of 2 points). Extra points then awarded for quarter-final, semi-final and final participation. Doesn't look like you get anything for being in the first two knockout rounds.

It's a separate draw for that round, there's less chance of us being seeded in that stage unless there are a few shocks in the third qualifying round or there are no shocks at all in the Champions League 3rd qualifying round - losers from that get parachuted into the Playoff round for the Europa League. The draw for that one is a "proper" draw, I think, so there's no pre-drawing of pots to make it quicker.

The draw is noon UK time, 1pm CET.

I actually could have cashed-out a profit on the Hampshire win at one point. Put a fiver on at 9/1 at the break, at one stage the return was £12. Should have taken it

116 all out, FFS

Always the case this close to the game. Could have probably got £60-70 or so on fixture release day.

Edwards qualifies as a Kolpak player, so there's room for another overseas there.

Our potential opponents are now down to 50. 8 definites and 21 either/or pairs from the 2nd qualifying round. Automatic unseeded qualifiers: Vitesse (Netherlands) Jablonec (Czech Republic) Sturm Graz (Austria) AEK Larnaca (Cyprus) Ironi Kiryat Shmona (Israel) Istanbul Basaksehir (Turkey) Targu Mures (Romania) Rheindorf Altach (Austria) 2nd Qualifying Round: Inverness Caledonian Thistle (Scotland) or Astra Giurgiu (Romania) Cherno More Varna (Bulgaria) or Dynamo Minsk (Belarus) Slovan Bratislava (Slovakia) or University College Dublin (Ireland) AIK Solna (Sweden) or Shirak (Armenia) Mlada Boleslav (Czech Republic) or Stromsgodset (Norway) Slask Wroclaw (Poland) or IFK Gothenburg (Sweden) Skonto Riga (Latvia) or Debrecen (Hungary) Dacia Chisinau (Moldova) or Zilina (Slovakia) Beroe Stara Zagora (Bulgaria) or Brondby (Denmark) Charleroi (Belgium) or Beitar Jerusalem (Israel) Shakhtyor Soligorsk (Belarus) or Wolfsberger AC (Austria) Vojvodina Novi Sad (Serbia) or Spartaks Jurmala (Latvia) Spartak Trnava (Slovakia) or Linfield (Northern Ireland) FH Reykjavik (Iceland) or Inter Baku (Azerbaijan) Ferencvaros (Hungary) or Zeljneznicar (Bosnia) Shamrock Rovers (Ireland) or Odd (Norway) Jelgava (Latvia) or Rabotnicki (Macedonia) Vaduz (Liechtenstein) or Nomme Kalju (Estonia) Cukaricki (Serbia) or Gabala (Azerbaijan) Kukesi (Albania) or Mladost Podgorica (Montenegro) Kairat (Kazakhstan) or Alashkert (Armenia) 32 different countries still potentially available: Albania 1 Armenia 2 Austria 3 Azerbaijan 2 Belarus 2 Belgium 1 Bosnia 1 Bulgaria 2 Cyprus 1 Czech Republic 2 Denmark 1 Estonia 1 Hungary 2 Iceland 1 Ireland 2 Israel 2 Kazakhstan 1 Latvia 3 Liechtenstein 1 Macedonia 1 Moldova 1 Montenegro 1 Netherlands 1 Northern Ireland 1 Norway 2 Poland 1 Romania 2 Scotland 1 Serbia 2 Slovakia 3 Sweden 2 Turkey 1 Other 2nd Qualifying Round matches of interest: In terms of Playoff Round seeding prospects, we could do with upsets in one or more of the following 2nd qualifying round ties (seeded team in italics): Copenhagen (Denmark) v Newtown (Wales) Lokomotiva (Croatia) v PAOK (Greece) Trabzonspor (Turkey) v Differdange 03 (Luxembourg) Legia Warsaw (Poland) v Botosani (Romania) As a guide, 16 of the 51 ties in the 1st qualifying round were won by the unseeded team...

Mané as a midfielder is a bit of a bonus - not only can you add an extra striker to your team, but he'll also get clean sheet bonuses.

Defensive midfielders are generally not particularly valuable on this version of Fantasy League, as the only defensive points available are clean sheet bonuses - nothing for the actual defensive work a holding midfielder gets through, tackles, interceptions, etc. More often than not, they're going to be earning just the 2 points for playing 60+ minutes, and the likelihood of losing points for bookings is pretty high. Hesketh being worth as much as he is is a bit odd, mind you.

No doubt that Ajmal is a top bowler, but is it worth having a top spin bowler as our overseas player to go with our already-perfectly-decent spin bowlers when our pace bowlers are nowhere near good enough? Not worth throwing the ball to a spinner with the opposition well set at 300/2 and saying "here you go, win us the game", no matter how good he may be. Our batting lineup - on paper at least - is decent enough, but without any confidence in the bowling unit to ensure their work is backed up, and as a result their form has nosedived. We need two opening bowlers who can take wickets, not just "bowl dry". Spinners feed off of momentum built up by the seamers. My point was that there are no real headline names available for the whole summer, and most of the overseas players tend to be batsmen.

Yep. One mightily ****ed off limited company contractor here

Problem is that most of the overseas players who are available for the whole season aren't of sufficient quality to be worth bothering with (see Bird as a prime example). Edwards was available for the vast majority, only missing a portion because of the Caribbean T20 competition, but then missed a chunk due to injury. Looking at who the other Div 1 sides have had in as overseas players this summer in the County Championship: Durham: John Hastings (AR) Middlesex: Kyle Abbott (bowl), James Franklin (AR, mainly bat now), Adam Voges (bat) Nottinghamshire: Vernon Philander (bowl), Ben Hilfenhaus (bowl) Somerset: no first-class overseas player Sussex: Steve Magoffin (bowl) Warwickshire: Jeetan Patel (bowl) Worcestershire: Colin Munro (bat), Sachithra Senanayake (bowl), Saeed Ajmal (bowl) Yorkshire: Aaron Finch (bat), Kane Williamson (bat), Glenn Maxwell (AR, mainly bat), Cheteshwara Pujara (bat) So there's no real big-name overseas players coming over here for first-class cricket anymore. The BCCI generally don't let Indian players do it at all these days, so it was seen as a massive coup for Yorkshire to get Pujara for a couple of games at the start of the season, and probably with the exception of Abbott and Philander, there's no fast bowler who you'd say would be a game-changer for us. Can't remember what happened with Abbott, why didn't we renew his deal from last year?

Very good player, but no way is he worth £22m - I assume that's his contract buyout clause?

Gloriously mental second half, mainly thanks to us not being able to defend. Presumably we'll see more of the senior defenders on Saturday in Salzburg. Some obvious positives, Juanmi, Rodriguez and Soares. With all these diminutive midfielders we've got, we need to go into every game with a bit of steel, really, as we got bullied at times there. There was also a noticeable difference in terms of the confidence to play a passing game in those conditions, RBL showed no difference in attitude than you would expect from them in good conditions, whereas we didn't look confident taking a touch in tight areas, instead resorting to going a bit too long.

Yep.

Jay-Rod :D

Looks like: K Davis; McCarthy - Stephens - Wood - Debayo; Hesketh - Little - Gape - McQueen; Seager - Rodriguez Or at least, those are the 11 players, probably not in a 4-4-2.

They're not very well liked in Germany. The fans of many clubs boycott games against them because Red Bull chuck money at them and they're seen as a bit of an artificial club. They were formed in the regional leagues about 5 years ago and RB have been spending big to get them up to where they are now, and they'll be favourites to go up this season, along with Kaiserslautern.

One thing to bear in mind, along with the fact our lineup is very much a second-string, is that Leipzig's league season starts two weeks before ours, so they're already well into their preparation. No idea whether the team they've named this evening is full-strength or otherwise, but they've spent a relative fortune compared to their rivals. More than €10m spent as a 2nd Division team, would expect the other 17 teams to struggle to spend that much between them.

To be fair, he'd only recently been named Player of the Tournament and won the Golden Boot at the African Cup of Nations, so it seemed a good deal for everyone at the time. Hasn't worked out, but it's not been that much of a waste when you compare it to other transfers we've made a pig's ear of since promotion.

Sure I saw a photo of him arriving for training yesterday. Don't know if he's still injured, perhaps? He got quite a serious injury at the Cup of Nations if I remember rightly.