Wow. Anderlecht and Monaco so far. I thought this was supposed to be easy in the Group stages And finally a long trip to Azerbaijan. All in all, not great.
Awful, awful draw. Just appalling. I think MP should treat this competition exactly as Harry did and use the minimum 6 games to blood in the youngsters. Winks, Pritchard, Onomah, Yedlin, Wimmer, Alli - the list is endless. We don't stand a chance of winning it once the CL failures drop into the competition. And this year I seriously doubt we can get out of the group stage without playing basically a full strength team in most games, which I'm not prepared to see. We stand a far greater chance of success in one of the domestic cups.
Loving the draw, two local ones and one far out that I presume the kids/ reserves would be able to deal with. I like the idea of facing strong opposition, if we're ever to get back in the CL then we've gotta prepare to face good teams midweek and weekends. Will be a good challenge, we're the best team in the group so it's down to us to prove it.
Such a bad draw it has the silver lining of a fairly likely early exit. There’s been a general agreement we should concentrate on the cups. On the other hand, early exits from the Europa and the FA cup, which look very conceivable considering very tough draws, means we might concentrate on the league, for once. I agree we should play our second team (in the Europa, not against Arsenal) and hope for the best. We don’t actually know they’re weaker than our first team, anyway. It is good that all but two of these games will be top teams and therefore easy for the players to get up for. I don’t really see it helping us, though. To win a marathon like the Europa you need luck as well as big game performances. Not having much recent history of either one does not bode well.
We've got the 12th most valuable squad in the world according to Transfermarkt which makes us the second highest in the Europa league and that probably won't change even after the CL teams drop in. In each of the domestic cups there are 5 better squads than us. So why isn't this our best chance of qualifying for the CL?
I think the most valid question for the Qarabag away match is which first teamers would people be happy to see us take?
I don't get why everyone is saying play the kids and reserves in the europa, this is our only chance of getting into the champions league, we would be much better coming 8th in the league and trying to win this. I think it's a fairly good draw, a short trip to Belgium and who doesn't want to go to Monaco. Obviously qarabag isn't ideal but beat them at home and we can top that group.
I can think of one I’d like us to leave there. Though he’s not a first teamer any more. Qarabag sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? Dirtbag with a bit of an exotic tinge, to me. That’s a good question. How many rounds, or their equivalent, are there in the Europa versus the league and FA cups? That should be the biggest factor. From a practical point of view, both the domestic cups are far less effort and distraction than the Europa, which means it may make sense not to make a full-bore effort there. In any case, we got to the finals of the league cup last year, and have never gotten to the semifinals of the Europa in a long time. I’d like us to win something. The problem is that the Europa takes up most of the PL season, and the number of teams in it mean the chances of winning it are tiny. Add in that a team with a bit of confidence in their ability to win things are much likelier to pull through, and it’s just not worth it--not when I really want to see how a team of mostly academy players gets on. To judge from the AC Milan game, they may be better than the starters. They’ve had more continuity.
I shudder to think how badly the current squad would fair in a CL campaign. We are a hundred miles away from being ready to compete at that level. The trouble we've had in recent seasons' Europa League campaigns as soon as semi-decent opposition crosses our path more than demonstrates this point. If we can't dispose of the likes of Fiorentina, Lyon, Basel etc, we will be torn to shreds by the teams we'd face in the CL. One of the reasons our maiden CL voyage was so successful was that we had a once-in-a-generation blend of players who had bags of CL experience (Gallas,VDV) together with players who were clearly and demonstrably good enough to compete at that level (King, Bale, Modric). The level of our squad now is nowhere near that level. I get that 'The game is about the glory' and all that, but there's no need to 'rush' things when one disastrous season in the CL could knock our youngsters' confidence for six while ruining our respectable coefficient at the same time.
No, but relatively speaking - comparing the size and aspirations of our two clubs - it probably is. By the same token, Celtic have without question got the hardest draw of all the British teams; not necessarily because Fenerbache are better than Porto, but because relative to Chelsea, Celtic will struggle terribly to get out of that group. If United fail to qualify, it will be a footballing travesty and LVG would have a lot of questions to answer. If Spurs fail to qualify, it wouldn't be looked upon so negatively.
We need to do well in the Europa to keep our coefficient as high as possible. If we don't we will end up in pot four if we happen to qualify for CL through our league position. Should we win the Europa we will be in pot three,possibly two and make a CL campaign easier ( or less difficult if you prefer ).
Well Anderlecht and Monaco both played well against Arsenal. Wolfsburg are a good side and a great side on their day but as they showed last season, too often they're well short of that. They lost to Everton twice and Everton were very poor, in the first half of last season, especially. PSV and Wolfsburg have both lost their best players so yeah, I'd rather play those two sides.
I think you are far too pessimistic about our chances against CL teams. We just outplayed United who are a CL team.and a apart from the top 6 or so, teams in the CL are much the same standard as many in the Europa. Yes the hype is greater but it is in many ways an easier competition. Also what is the point of people wanting to get into the CL if they feel we cannot compete in the Europa, there is more point in competing in the Europa than the League Cup IMO.
Assuming that we can qualify for the knock-out stages without stretching ourselves, we need to win 5 rounds to win the Europa or the League cup and 6 to win the FA cup. The average standard in the 32 teams in the Europa is much higher than in the League cup and FA cup but against that we have already drawn one of the better teams in the League Cup. Of course even if our chance of winning each round is 0.8, the chance of winning five rounds in a row is only about a third.
Smash Anderlecht and Monaco with our first team, a mixture of bench+youngsters vs Qarabag at home and send the kit man and Dotty the tea lady to lose in the Middle East.
We won't win the Europa league and we can't get top four through the league. I understand some fans prefer to be glass half full and optimistic but some of you don't realise we aren't qualifying for the champions league for a very long time. But I'm looking forward to seeing us play bigger teams, as watching us play irrelevant European teams isn't exciting, one of the reasons fans dislike the Europa league is the lack of competition early on, with added games which impact the league campaign, but facing some quality teams is more interesting. even if Pochettino plays youngsters. Still. we have no chance of winning the competition.
