How stupid of me! Newcastle cannot make it to a final against Benfica. Here's to one of Chelsea or Spurs making it to the final. Mind you if both London teams managed to get through and avoid each other in semis, I suspect both sets of fans would indulge in a bit of "Arsenal bashing" I suspect UEFA are praying that Fenebache get knocked out!! God help Amsterdam if the Turkish team make it all the way through!!
Sorry but I can't support a team just because its 'English', I will be supporting the team whom I think deserve to win, and are putting in the best performance. But then I don't support England games either as I think as a team they are rubbish.
Any game in Russia is tougher than Romania. We cannot expect to win just for turning up, and need to play smart, counter attacking football. Ball retention is key. Over to you Rafa.
Our fixture congestion is not ideal at all, but I think we'd do more to jeopardise CL qualification by deliberately throwing the Europa League away than if we just tried our best to win every game. 2nd, 3rd and 4th spot will go to the teams that show the most form and consistency over the remaining games. Losing games, even if subconsciously deliberately, will not help in that respect and we'd be throwing away our new found form if we were stupid enough to try that. I wanna see us play well, even if all the way in Moscow.
I have to say I'm delighted we have the first leg first, irrespective of what people believe it is an advantage. Kazan pretty much have no home advantage as the game probably won't be played at their ground. Kazan are likely to be well organised and will set out to defend which means we don't have to worry as much about conceding at the other end, whereas having 2nd leg at home we saw how tough Steau made it for us and how well they broke. We've seen in recent European ties against Copenhagen, Benfica and Prague how much complacency creeps into our game when we play at home first and more importantly it means from Southampton away to Rubin away we have pretty much no travel. All round it's definitely helped our season. If we can get past the banana skin of Rubin then we should go on to win it because we are comfortably better than any other side left. Don't rate Lazio (or any Serie A side bar Juve) at all and we are capable of beating Benfica or Spurs, especially over 2 legs.
wrong. You're going trophyless again. Funny how you lambast Arsenal yet you've won 2 poxy little tins in 23 odd years, incomparable to what we and they have won.
All the more reason why we need to beat United in the cup. Beat them and then that gets moved to a midweek and we can get a good atmosphere and make it difficult for Spurs who may have gone even more off the boil by then. IMO the later we play Spurs the better. Southampton and Sunderland are our next 2 games, win those and we should be good for top 4. Can't see us missing out with 61 points from 31 considering 70 or thereabouts would usually suffice. The draw has worked out very well as it means no travel in between our busy schedule.
I'd fancy Spurs over 2 legs against anyone bar us and Benfica but a lot depends on the form of Bale and AVB's management. AVB is starting to show shades of the tactical ineptitude that partly contributed to him losing his job at Chelsea. Could be wrong but Spurs have never won the CWC. Chelsea are the only club now that could add Every European trophy to the cabinet as some are now defunct. Never thought I'd say this but I'd rather win the Europa League than FA Cup for that reason.
To be fair Spurs did win the CWC in the 60's. You may not realise this cos they are often too busy bigging up these amazing gems: - Norwich Charity Cup Winners 1919/1920 Norwich Hospital Charity Cup Winners 1946/1947, 1949/1950 (joint) Ipswich Hospital Charity Cup Winners 1951/1952 (joint) Costa Del Sol Tournament Winners 1965, 1966 Nolia Cup (Sweden) Winners 1977 Japan Cup Winners 1979 Sun International Challenge Trophy (Swaziland) Winners 1983 Peace Cup (Korea) Winners 2005 Vodacom Challenge (South Africa) Winners 2007 Feyenoord Jubileum Tournament (Holland) Winners 2008 Barclays Asia Trophy (China) Winners 2009 These are actually on their official site under honours. My fav has always been joint winners of the ipswich hospitals cup!! These are right up there with the Bronze swimming certificate and silver swimming certificate that I got when I was 5.
You are very wrong D/L,we won it in '63,beating Athletico Madrid 5-1,and becoming the first British team to win a European trophy!.
