Europa League Early Rounds

so i have trying to get my head around this idly this week, but it seems quite complicated, made more difficult by the odd routes in that English teams took this season.

I get the difference between CL and Europa League entry and also that Chelsea qualifying by winning CL was a negative influence on us and Tottenham.

There are three qualifying rounds, out of which we go into the third, alongside Liverpool. Tottenham go in at the group stages along with various teams that go out early in the CL. We play one team over two legs in August to qualify for the group stages (the game that is causing our boys to push for a date change).

Am I right ? Or is there more to it than that ? Is the draw for this qualifier seeded ? And if so, how will we seed ?

I am a bit worried we'll hit a hard game there in fact.

 

No, there are 3 qualifying rounds, Liverpool join in round 3, there's then a playoff round, of all the winners of those. We join in the playoff, win over 2 legs and we're in the group.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012–13_UEFA_Europa_League

Yeah Davey is right...You can also see the teams we'll potentially be up against.

 

In case anyone's wondering, no one from England will have to take Fulham's route, thankfully. They qualified through Fair Play and had about 6 qualifying rounds!

 

The size of our squad, that would absolutely murder us!

 

yeah i saw that, the fair play guys in at R1 quals, that must make eight games before the group stages. ouch, especially with Euro 2012.

that was my confusion, there are four rounds before the groups and we are in the last one. the groups are where its at in my opinion, that's when the real competition starts, the less we have to go through before that the better.

 

quite interesting though, that, it shows that The League Cup is not as well respected as a good league position or the FA Cup, as the winner of the former is entered two rounds earlier than the latter two two. Different this season of course due to Chelsea, but there you go

 

Lets hope we avoid Napoli and Athletico Madrid

 

Won't do Fulham any good either.

 

Sizes of squads are opinionated. It all depends on how you rate a teams squad players.

People last season said we'd fall towards the end of the season, that's because they didn't rate the likes of Perch, Raylor, Guthrie ect.

We definitely need more players in though.

 

We are seeded for the playoffs and group stages because the English league has a very high coefficient. We will not play any of the top teams in our two leg playoff game, thats something you can be sure on.

 

Yeah of course, but lets be honest, we took a massive gamble not bringing in more bodies. The gamble paid off as the likes of Perch, Guthrie and Raylor all exceeded expectation. More games means more pressure and more opportunities to lose big names to injury.

Whilst I'm more than happy to see our youngster push through. Imagine if we lose Raylor, Gutierrez and Santon to injury in January. We could potentially be playing Ferguson and Sammy on our left hand side...I rate them, but that's a lot of inexperience there!

 

Agreed. IMO we need -

Another creative CM, a Cabaye type player.
Another back up striker. I don't want to have to rely on Shola during the ACoN.
A quality RB or LB, keep Simmo, plus a Perch type player that's versatile.
A quality CB
If Harper is finished or Elliot isn't up to scratch, maybe another keeper.

 

I hope the club prices the tickets for the earlier rounds sensibly, ie. about £15 to £20. Far better see the stadium relatively full rather than 25k paying £30 to watch.

 

That would be nice, and I agree, but I think we need to push Cabaye further upfield, so I'd say another CDM or box to box CM - Anita sounds perfect as he is versatile.

I'd also keep Simmo, but with Fergy, Tavernier, Raylor and Perch all capable of covering his position and with Pardew publicly stating that he wants a LB/RB, I don't know if the club will deem his surplus to requirements and try and get a couple of mil for him instead of giving him 15-20 games max and losing him for free?

 

This, and I'm skint...so yeah, cheap tickets please!

 

Whip around for JWAG?

 

Even though Pards rates Tav, we haven't seen enough to be able to claim he could be used in a PL game or a game with a certain about of importance. I've seen him a couple of times, and he was ok in one of the games I saw him in, but against Leeds away in the friendly, he was very wobbly. I'll trust Pardew, but I don't think we can really say he's ready yet.

He should be used in the cup games and give more experience.

Fergy is a canny LB, but up against anyone with physical presence he's quite vulnerable. I remember him up against Everton in the 10/11 season. They just got Anichibe to shove him about, and he was helpless.

Raylor is a good player, but he's definitely not a good fullback.

These 3 players can only play at PL level at fullback if they have Jonas basically acting the part of a 2nd LB, camped right in front of them.

Perch is the only one out of them I'd say who's defensively solid enough, and experienced enough, to be able to play there in an important game right now, IMO.

I still think we should keep Simmo for the moment.

Hopefully we'll get to a decent stage in Europe league, which means even 5/6th choice players will get a chance at some stage!