I've just read that Ange has said he will 'not be playing his best players' tonight..... Comforting to know he appears to know who those players might be , but more concerning that he appears to not be taking the tie seriously.
You’d think after Fulham last year and Coventry last week he would realise too many changes leads to disjointed performances and he will have to use big guns off the bench anyway.
Interesting, I didn’t see this line in Ali Gold’s write up. Regardless, with the new format, teams get multiple bites of the cherry to progress so there’s much less jeopardy in the early stages. I suspect we’ll see Son on the bench for example, and Romero can’t play anyway. Not having Spence in the squad does continuously look silly though, unless the plan is to give him more PL minutes at some point. I’d almost rather we go stronger early in the expanded group stage while players are a bit fresher and that means we can be a bit more adventurous later in the groups when we have a couple of trickier away games, and avoid regular starters having to travel if we’ve banked a few results early.
This makes sense to me. You also know that they are fit now! Give it another month and some injuries may have built up and the option of playing 'the best' isnt there! And that becomes even more significant if there hasn't been a great start points-wise and we are playing catch up in the latter games of the group stage.
Davies at LB is sensible. Gray at RB, less so. No idea why we've named two GKs on the bench. Further underlines the nonsense in omitting Spence from the squad. Aren't there any academy CBs we could have given that spot to?
I was having a look at the teams in this competition and, although I'm not saying you should expect to win the Europa League, you should be aiming to go far. On paper at least, you should be beating most of these teams. Obviously I know football doesn't work that way, and there's more factors that go into winning than the quality of individuals you have over another team. But honestly, most of the sides I'm seeing here aren't anything special. A team that finished 5th in the Premier League last season should be looking to progress far in this competition IMO.
You absolute bastard!! If there was any even remote chance of us progressing far in this cup then that's just jinxed it!! .
It’s probably the ‘easiest’ competition to win for Spurs but considering Spurs haven’t got past the last 8 in Europa for a long time, I can’t see Spurs going on to win it this season. Man Utd the favourites for me.
Even me making a comment like that shouldn't stop you from progressing (unfortunately). You're playing Qarabag, Ferencvaros, AZ Alkmaar, Galatasaray, Roma, Rangers, Hoffenheim and Elfsborg. In theory, you should be flying through that set of fixtures - unless you suffer an insane injury crisis. The toughest teams I can potentially see from your group are Galatasaray and Roma. Every other team, you should realistically expect to be beating relatively comfortably. In terms of the wider competition, the main threats I can see are Athletic Bilbao, possibly Man Utd, Lazio and Porto. Maybe Frankfurt, given their strong start to the league campaign. But none of those teams are that scary. I hope I am wrong, but I do think you have a real chance of doing well in this competition (on paper anyway).
Yep. I can confirm it is pissing it down here in Norf London and due to a tree falling on the Norfern Line during rush hour, the traffic is insane.
Wet at the lane and a delayed kick off... loads of fans held up cos of the trains... took over 2 hrs 40 mins to get here...only took an hr and 15 on Saturday please log in to view this image
