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2015/16 Europa League - Round of 16: Borussia Dortmund

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Poch isnt going to start rotating everyone out for this competition at this stage after only winning 2 of the 6 league games that came after Thursday night Europa games.

Fiorentina's form has fallen off since this year.
 
Craig_J said:
Anyone else hoping we field a weakened side for this one?

Near the start of the season I remember saying we should focus on the Europa League. I didn't think we had much of a chance of top four and MIlo made a good point about how it only takes one mistake to fall out of Europe whereas you can be consistent with the odd mistake or two in the league and come out fine. Now we're actually 2nd in the league b ut have some hard games coming up...

The Europa League isn't a big tournament that it used to be when it was the UEFA Cup in pre-premier league days. It's a team that has Champions League drop outs who don't really want to be there. The fact is you get a Champions League place for winning it which is probably a much bigger prize than the trophy itsself.

I would like us to focus on the league and the bigger tournament which is the FA Cup. If we end up reaching the later rounds of the Europa only to fall out and fatigue leads to us dropping out of the top four than I'd say not playing our kids was a massive mistake...
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Me. I am hoping that Kane, Dembele and Alli are rested. But I would settle for just Kane being rested.
 
I'll venture a guess that Poch and his staff have run through all the what-if scenarios regarding the league and cups and will pick the squads accordingly. So whoever is surprised by team selections in specific matches, don't be. I'm pretty sure they will have thought it through and looked at players' fitness data to determine who can play and who needs a rest. If it's one thing I learned this season is to not second guess this coach.
 
Modric THFC said:
Poch isnt going to start rotating everyone out for this competition at this stage after only winning 2 of the 6 league games that came after Thursday night Europa games.

Fiorentina's form has fallen off since this year.
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Fiorentina are definitely not as strong as they were earlier in the season. They beat both Milan sides early on and are proper little flat track bullies with the lesser clubs in Serie A. But the only top 10 side they've beaten since December is the Mighty Flying Donkeys of Chievo.

Now, they've got two crucial home games and a winnable away game around the games with us. If we were in their shoes, we'd be clamouring to dump the EL and focus on hanging on to a CL place. They recently added Benalouane from Leicester, Mauro Zarate and Tino Costa.

Good look at their squad and stats here:

http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/season=2016/clubs/club=52817/domestic/index.html
 
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Craig_J said:
Anyone else hoping we field a weakened side for this one?

Near the start of the season I remember saying we should focus on the Europa League. I didn't think we had much of a chance of top four and MIlo made a good point about how it only takes one mistake to fall out of Europe whereas you can be consistent with the odd mistake or two in the league and come out fine. Now we're actually 2nd in the league b ut have some hard games coming up...

The Europa League isn't a big tournament that it used to be when it was the UEFA Cup in pre-premier league days. It's a team that has Champions League drop outs who don't really want to be there. The fact is you get a Champions League place for winning it which is probably a much bigger prize than the trophy itsself.

I would like us to focus on the league and the bigger tournament which is the FA Cup. If we end up reaching the later rounds of the Europa only to fall out and fatigue leads to us dropping out of the top four than I'd say not playing our kids was a massive mistake...
Click to expand...


Absolutely. At the start of the season, I took a different view and wanted us to take the Europa seriously.

Now, it's clearly more of a hindrance. I hope we put a reserve squad out or at the very least, Kane, Alli, Dembele, Toby and Lloris must not play in either game.
 
parklane1 said:
I was there we won 3-0, hope we get the same result over the two legs.
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I'm impressed and even more so that you remember it!

I'm OK if I see a clip of a game, it then jogs my brain.
The one game that is burnt into my retina is the 3-5 embarrassment against ManU. I was sitting just to right of goal where the goals went in. Even that feels like a lifetime ago.
 
spitshine said:
Absolutely. At the start of the season, I took a different view and wanted us to take the Europa seriously.

Now, it's clearly more of a hindrance. I hope we put a reserve squad out or at the very least, Kane, Alli, Dembele, Toby and Lloris must not play in either game.
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Problem is, you know that at least three of those five will play in each game, especially the first one. Maybe get a good result there and we'll rest them in the second leg. I'm so nervous about Kane.
 
spitshine said:
Absolutely. At the start of the season, I took a different view and wanted us to take the Europa seriously.

Now, it's clearly more of a hindrance. I hope we put a reserve squad out or at the very least, Kane, Alli, Dembele, Toby and Lloris must not play in either game.
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Seeing as we only have an FA cup in between the legs we should go all out in the away game. After the home leg we have Swansea at home, so again we should be able to field a strong side, depending on the score from the first game.
 
awesome dawson said:
Problem is, you know that at least three of those five will play in each game, especially the first one. Maybe get a good result there and we'll rest them in the second leg. I'm so nervous about Kane.
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That's the point. Kane and Dembele we would miss the most closely followed by Toby.
I am sure he must factor this in considering we have games against Emirates and Wet spam coming up.
Son and Carrol should start away to Fiorentina, although we have cup game against Palace on the Saturday, It's simply not worth the risk
Come on, I'm starting to dream of a league title please don't be silly Poch!
 
The home leg sold out pretty much straight away, I missed out on my ST seat as I completely forgot about it, DOH
 
greatwhitenorf said:
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Also, by winning this round of Europa League, we would pretty much ensure we were seeded by UEFA within the top 20 clubs, so we would go into the second pot during next year's CL draw. If we do beat Fiorentina, there's reason to believe we'd be in decent shape to have a good go in the following round. Deal with that later.
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Man Utd are currently 20th in the UEFA rankings, 8 points ahead of us, so winning this round is unfortunately not going to get us into the top 20. There are a few teams ranked above us (eg. Chelsea and Valencia) that aren't going to qualify for next year's CL but, if you're looking at potential pots, you also need to take into account that teams with a coefficient lower than ours could take a position in Pot 1 by being their domestic champions (eg. Leicester :eek:). Let's just win the PL and then our coefficient will be irrelevant!
 
spitshine said:
Absolutely. At the start of the season, I took a different view and wanted us to take the Europa seriously.

Now, it's clearly more of a hindrance. I demand we put a reserve squad out or at the very least, Kane, Alli, Dembele, Toby and Lloris must not play in either game.
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Having been wrong earlier this season you've now changed your mind to another opinion with no flexibility or room to accept that Pochettino might see things differently?

awesome dawson said:
Problem is, you know that at least three of those five will play in each game, especially the first one. Maybe get a good result there and we'll rest them in the second leg. I'm so nervous about Kane.
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It's not just about the EL games in isolation. If those players play against City, both games against Fiorentina, Palace game in between that and then against Swansea right after that only to be expected to be ready for the West Ham game we might see some players struggling.

But these players have shown in the past that they can manage 3 games in 7-8 days. So I don't see how 3 of those 5 playing in one of the Fiorentina is a problem as long as we're smart about it in the other games.

I get the fear about Kane, I really do. But look at our actual injury history under Pochettino. I think you have to admit that he gets these things right a hell of a lot more often than he gets them wrong. And we can't pick a team based on fear. Pochettino has to pick the team based on careful analysis.
 
braineclipse said:
Having been wrong earlier this season you've now changed your mind to another opinion with no flexibility or room to accept that Pochettino might see things differently?
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That post may have been a victim of the word replacement filter and not meant as harsh as it reads now.
 
Thought I would give you the heads up it is on later for all the would be scouts amongst us.

Not followed much of Italian football so it will be interesting to see what their all about.

Will help to sober me up and calm my nerves after this afternoon.
 
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