Champions League - PSG

[maidstonevillain]

Sorry, yes. It is guaranteed that the top eight will have home advantage in the second legs, and be seeded to play against the round of twenty-four winners, in the last sixteen. I'm not sure whether there is any seeding in the quarter-finals and semi-finals or if it's just open draw, as it has always been previously.

Also teams finishing 9th-16th will have home advantage in second leg, and be seeded to play teams that finish 17th-24th, in the round of twenty-four.

Had a look, from what I see, no real benefit finishing higher than 8th. Obviously, we're pretty well placed to get into that group, given our points on the board and the game or two where we feel we should pick up maximum points, especially Brugge and Celtic (that said, nobody will be fancy playing us right now, including Juve and the like). So if we can get over the line early, we can ease up a bit and focus on the league and domestic cups.

Sorry, yes. It is guaranteed that the top eight will have home advantage in the second legs, and be seeded to play against the round of twenty-four winners, in the last sixteen. I'm not sure whether there is any seeding in the quarter-finals and semi-finals or if it's just open draw, as it has always been previously.

Also teams finishing 9th-16th will have home advantage in second leg, and be seeded to play teams that finish 17th-24th, in the round of twenty-four.

Had a look, from what I see, no real benefit finishing higher than 8th. Obviously, we're pretty well placed to get into that group, given our points on the board and the game or two where we feel we should pick up maximum points, especially Brugge and Celtic (that said, nobody will be fancy playing us right now, including Juve and the like). So if we can get over the line early, we can ease up a bit and focus on the league and domestic cups.

There is an additional payout for finishing higher in the League I understand. About E275k per place.

[lovejoy]

I think top 8 will be a struggle.

 2 wins from the next 5 games will likely be enough. We have won 3 out of 3 so far.

What makes you think we will win a maximum of 1 of the next 5?

The evidence of being a supporter for the last 40 years. We barely stumbled to 5th last season because Spurs trippped up. We should beat Celtic in the last match but we have a tough home match vs Juve and then away matches.

[Dave]

Was there something about the one away match that we've played already that suggested we shouldn't hope to win at least one of the other three?

It felt pretty comfortable to me.

[itbrvilla]

On a random sort of related tangent... I'm going to watch Feyenoord Vs AZ Alkmaar on the 2nd at De Kuip. Can anyone tell me which end Peter Withe scored at?

[lovejoy]

It was against the team 35/36 in the table, are we able to play them again otherwise I do not see the relevance.

[Ads]

I think top 8 will be a struggle.

 2 wins from the next 5 games will likely be enough. We have won 3 out of 3 so far.

What makes you think we will win a maximum of 1 of the next 5?

The evidence of being a supporter for the last 40 years. We barely stumbled to 5th last season because Spurs trippped up. We should beat Celtic in the last match but we have a tough home match vs Juve and then away matches.

Lol.

[Ads]

On a random sort of related tangent... I'm going to watch Feyenoord Vs AZ Alkmaar on the 2nd at De Kuip. Can anyone tell me which end Peter Withe scored at?

The stadium has been rotated I think, could be wrong.

[Dave]

It was against the team 35/36 in the table, are we able to play them again otherwise I do not see the relevance.

And two of our remaining three away games are against the teams 26th and 31st in the table, who between them have lost five of their six matches.

That's the relevance.

[Brazilian Villain]

I think we should beat Brugge and Celtic, and can expect at least 3 points from the Juve/Leipzig/Monaco (however they come). 18 points would get us top 8 but I'd like to win every game to get as much as cash in as possible. No 'coasting' please.

[lovejoy]

We should be able to play Crystal Palace and not lose by 5.

Look, I am being intentionally pessimistic because bitter experience has conditioned me not to expect anything and to only celebrate after the fact. Reading some posts on here and it sounds like some fans are booking hotels in Munich already.

[Accent Guy]

We should be able to play Crystal Palace and not lose by 5.

Look, I am being intentionally pessimistic because bitter experience has conditioned me not to expect anything and to only celebrate after the fact. Reading some posts on here and it sounds like some fans are booking hotels in Munich already.

I see you picked the game where we almost had to ask the crowd if they'd brought their boots, such was the injury list and level of player exhaustion for that final game at Palace.

That blip, in bizarre circumstances has no bearing whatsoever on our ability to beat the likes of Bruges and Celtic with the squad we currently have.

I haven't seen anyone talking about the final either. The discussion is about top 8 qualification which requires just 2 wins from the next 5 games.

[Dave]

We should be able to play Crystal Palace and not lose by 5.

Look, I am being intentionally pessimistic because bitter experience has conditioned me not to expect anything and to only celebrate after the fact. Reading some posts on here and it sounds like some fans are booking hotels in Munich already.

They're not really.

They're just thinking that if all goes to form, we should manage to scrape seven points from fifteen from five teams all of whom are (on paper) not as good as us, having got nine from nine already.

And I understand the pre-conditioned pessimism. So if "a struggle" mean that we'll have to play well against the likes of Monaco and Leipzig to get anything and if we play like we did in the Ipswich game then we'll probably lose, then sure - no arguments.

But if "a struggle" means that the most likely outcome is three or four defeats from our last five games. Then no.

[lovejoy]

Getting ahead of ourselves, just some quotes:

"I've already booked my hotel for the Super Cup.

Anyone else dreaming that we could win this?

And I’m definitely dreaming of CL glory

Would be unbelievable if we remained unbeaten in group stage.

We've basically qualified for the next round of the Champions League already having played less than half our matches

We need to qualify as quickly as possible so we can deliberately lose our last few group games to mess up England's ranking

We’ll be there or thereabouts"

[cdbearsfan]

Sorry, I hadn't realised I needed to label posts "I DON'T REALLY MEAN THIS".

[john e]

Getting ahead of ourselves, just some quotes:

"I've already booked my hotel for the Super Cup.

Anyone else dreaming that we could win this?

And I’m definitely dreaming of CL glory

Would be unbelievable if we remained unbeaten in group stage.

We've basically qualified for the next round of the Champions League already having played less than half our matches

We need to qualify as quickly as possible so we can deliberately lose our last few group games to mess up England's ranking

We’ll be there or thereabouts"

Your gona look a right twat when Emi’s running around doing inappropriate things with the CL cup next May