please log in to view this image As is tradition, this will be a quickly cobbled together mockery of the ones that we have for the league. We've never met in European competition before, though we have played and beaten their main rivals Red Star Belgrade in the 72/73 UEFA Cup. Partizan have lost repeatedly to English opposition in recent seasons, though they did beat the Geordies in the 98/99 season, putting them out of the first round of the Cup Winners' Cup. Right, that's enough of that. What sort of team do people think that we should be sending out to Serbia? Should we try to put points on the board as quickly as possible and with the least risk, picking a strong team and getting out of the group as fast as we can? Should we use the competition to bed in our new signings, resting our league starters and increasing competition for places? I'd go with the latter and leave as many of those that started against Sunderland at home as we can. Not sure about injuries, so I'll just hope that we've got one or two back, as I'm not even sure how bad their injuries are. Vorm Naughton Fazio Vertonghen Davies Stambouli Bentaleb Lennon Paulinho Townsend Soldado Subs: Friedel, Veljkovic, McQueen, Ball, Mason, Ceballos, Kane. Probably take some of the other U21 players too, though I'm pretty sure that most of them wouldn't be ready to take part in a game at this level. I want us to do well in this tournament, but we need to balance that desire with a practical approach to squad rotation, in my opinion. The team that drew against the Mackems probably did well enough to start again against West Brom, so having this tie and the League Cup game against Forest to stake a claim would be good for the rest.
I'd go along with that team. It genuinely looks a good, exciting team. Those players also need 90 mins under their belt.
I'd go with PNP's line up but I'm not sure if Vorm and Soldado are fit so probably go with Brad and Kane. Wouldn't be surprised if one of our new captain/vice-captains starts though.
I'd say Vorm's fit now mate, he was on the bench vs Sunderland over Brad. I'd also go with PNP's line-up except Kane in for Soldado as Robbie has only just returned from injury, as for the subs I'd have: Friedel, Chiriches, Veljkovic, Mason, Onomah, Chadli, Kane EDIT: Soldado on bench, NOT Kane.
FFS! You know it's funny, when I done that post I actually said to myself something didn't seem right. I'll just blame it on lack of sleep last night
Mauricio confirms that @E_Adebayor, @mousadembele, Rose, Chadli & @YounsKabs4 haven't travelled to Belgrade. From a quick look at the clips put up, the following are in the travelling party : Davies, Velkjovic, Stambouli, Fazio, Paulinho, Townsend, Kane, Soldado,
Seeing as Kaboul is club captain and Adebayor and Lloris vice captains, it surely means Lloris is going to play tonight as the other two havent travelled. Thats a shame as i was hoping to see Vorm make his debut.
Maybe tots but unless Ade finds the net regularly and I mean starting Sunday he might find himself not as important as he thinks he is. This competition doesn't appeal to me as much as the PL so I've nothing to say about Partizan. They've been in Europe before but I can't remember when. But as my team is playing I would hope for a continuation of the previous score lines against Limassol. We seem to score well in the early stages of Europe and then dry up, I hope we can break that trend.
apparently they are only in Europe because Red Star are banned from playing in Europe for some reason
Doesn't matter why they are in the competition-more relevant is their performance this year- and after 5 games they are top of their league with 5 wins.
In our CL year SOS we scored freely, three and four often and then came one and nil and I don't think that the opposition was THAT much tougher. It was the same in the EL so it seems to be a bit of a tradition with us. Yes Blue and White that has to be a concern but as Chelsea showed last night a different competition can bring different form. Chelsea have been banging them in in the PL and scraped a 1-1 last night so it could happen to Partizan in the EL.
In the latter stages we faced AC Milan and then Real Madrid, Real Madrid ended up tonking us (albeit Crouchy's red didn't help) where as we got a superb 1-0 win at the San Siro which took us through to face Real, if you truly believe that level of competition wasn't that much better than us then I think you rate us far higher than what we truly are/ were to be honest mate. We faced AC when they had Zlatan, Thiago Silva, Robinho, Seedorf and Gattuso - World Class players and a team with a truly magnificent history. Madrid had literally a star studded XI that contained about 5 or 6 World Cup winners as well as one of the best players of our generation. As amazing as our debut campaign was, that level of quality was far greater than ours, plus when considering the stature of the other two clubs alone, which include an amazing history in the Champions League/ European Cup (about 15 or so wins between them I think), we were facing absolute giants of the game, which was why the win at San Siro was a truly memorable moment for all Spurs fans.
They lost narrowly to Ludogrets in the CL 3rd rd qualifying, so they are no mugs. And they're a team whose name we instantly recognise! Serial Yugoslav champions once upon a time and European Cup runner-up in 1966.
