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Champions League group stage rules

paxtonwolf said:
I know some players like playing for their country, but as a club we need to do this more often. As you say SAF wouldnt think twice of having a key player 'conveniently' injured for a friendly
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Yeah, but Fergie built a massive culture of "Yanited over England", amongst the fans as well as the players. Living in Manchester, it seems so much more so than for any other club. I get pleasure from seeing one of our lads picked for England, but that just doesn't seem to be there for my ManU supporting friends. Once that's ingrained, the player stops making 100% effort to be fit for his country, even if it's only subconsciously.

Whereas Poch seems to make it a badge of pride. Perhaps it's because he had a spell playing for one of the great national teams, perhaps it's because he hung out with the likes of Maradona and Batistuta, perhaps it's because he only had 20 or so international caps so never took it for granted.
 
a spur from swansea said:
Why should we send out a weaken side for a Champs League game,got a guts full of this last week against the spammers ,what other competition are we saving the players for,i don't think Poch will do it anyway but if he does it against Apoel and gets his fingers burnt he be ripped apart by everyone.

Its the Champs League not the Coconut Cup or what ever!!
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Massively different.

We are through to the next round
 
a spur from swansea said:
Why should we send out a weaken side for a Champs League game,got a guts full of this last week against the spammers ,what other competition are we saving the players for,i don't think Poch will do it anyway but if he does it against Apoel and gets his fingers burnt he be ripped apart by everyone.

Its the Champs League not the Coconut Cup or what ever!!
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Because of the injuries we've seen Kane and Alderweireld pick up and the increased risk of more of those that comes from playing more games.

Because we have three PL games in a week in between the two remaining CL games, including away games to Leicester and Watford.

Because we have three PL games in a week following the CL game against Apoel, the last of them away to Emirates Marketing Project. A game we most likely have to get a result in if we want to be title challengers this season.

Because some of our squad players, that we will need to perform later this season, could benefit from some game time.

Because the difference between finishing first and second in the group is likely marginal.

Just off the top of my head.
 
braineclipse said:
Because of the injuries we've seen Kane and Alderweireld pick up and the increased risk of more of those that comes from playing more games.

Because we have three PL games in a week in between the two remaining CL games, including away games to Leicester and Watford.

Because we have three PL games in a week following the CL game against Apoel, the last of them away to Emirates Marketing Project. A game we most likely have to get a result in if we want to be title challengers this season.

Because some of our squad players, that we will need to perform later this season, could benefit from some game time.

Because the difference between finishing first and second in the group is likely marginal.

Just off the top of my head.
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I'd say the difference is more than marginal. As it stands, we can only meet PSG, Barcelona or Besiktas if we finish 2nd.

I'd rather face most of the teams likely to finish 2nd, although there are strong teams there as well: Bayern, Juventus, Sevilla, Basel/CSKA, Porto, Shaktar. Neither Bayern nor Juventus are like they used to be, and the others are teams we should beat over 2 legs.

Besiktas is the only team I would prefer from the 1st place teams, and we all know we will not get that draw.

That said, a win vs Apoel would see us finish 1st anyway, but I'm all for just sealing it with a win in Dortmund, and play the youth team vs Apoel.
 
Kandi1977 said:
I'd say the difference is more than marginal. As it stands, we can only meet PSG, Barcelona or Besiktas if we finish 2nd.

I'd rather face most of the teams likely to finish 2nd, although there are strong teams there as well: Bayern, Juventus, Sevilla, Basel/CSKA, Porto, Shaktar. Neither Bayern nor Juventus are like they used to be, and the others are teams we should beat over 2 legs.

Besiktas is the only team I would prefer from the 1st place teams, and we all know we will not get that draw.

That said, a win vs Apoel would see us finish 1st anyway, but I'm all for just sealing it with a win in Dortmund, and play the youth team vs Apoel.
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Interesting; i wonder whether Dortmund would want to on balance lose to avoid EL altogether...
 
Kandi1977 said:
Not a chance! EL is highly regarded everywhere except in England.
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Oh yeah, that's true. However, i was listening to a Podcast that was suggesting that this year they may not be so bothered about CL as this year it may be their best chance to usurp Bayern as champions.

This was a few weeks ago mind you after their draw away at Apoel..
 
There were pishy moans about qualifying for EL from Atletico Madrid players. I don't think Dortmund are much fussed either about getting third place if that slack 1-1 draw at home is anything to go by.

It's an interesting situation for Poch. I could easily understand some players wanting to play there since the Westfalenstadion has become a bit of an iconic venue in recent times. But it's a Tuesday game away after we play at Arsenal the Saturday before. After that, we face two league games in four days - home Saturday to always troublesome WBA, away to Leicester on Tuesday. We would be smart to rest some key players for Dortmund.


Dortmund are done like dinner in the group anyway. Do you honestly think Real Madrid are going to do anything other than hammer Apoel while we're at Dortmund? They only need a draw to clinch second, but after the scorching they've received in the media after being disembowelled at Wembley, they'll need to respond.

Dortmund will know this. They're home to a decent Schalke side the Saturday after playing us and, if they can get a result today against Bayern, would really want to be focusing on the Boundersleague title.
 
glorygloryeze said:
Oh yeah, that's true. However, i was listening to a Podcast that was suggesting that this year they may not be so bothered about CL as this year it may be their best chance to usurp Bayern as champions.

This was a few weeks ago mind you after their draw away at Apoel..
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Not even remotely likely.
 
greatwhitenorf said:
There were pishy moans about qualifying for EL from Atletico Madrid players. I don't think Dortmund are much fussed either about getting third place if that slack 1-1 draw at home is anything to go by.

It's an interesting situation for Poch. I could easily understand some players wanting to play there since the Westfalenstadion has become a bit of an iconic venue in recent times. But it's a Tuesday game away after we play at Arsenal the Saturday before. After that, we face two league games in four days - home Saturday to always troublesome WBA, away to Leicester on Tuesday. We would be smart to rest some key players for Dortmund.


Dortmund are done like dinner in the group anyway. Do you honestly think Real Madrid are going to do anything other than hammer Apoel while we're at Dortmund? They only need a draw to clinch second, but after the scorching they've received in the media after being disembowelled at Wembley, they'll need to respond.

Dortmund will know this. They're home to a decent Schalke side the Saturday after playing us and, if they can get a result today against Bayern, would really want to be focusing on the Boundersleague title.
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currently 3-0 down to Bayern with just over 20 mins to go!!

Dortmund have had their chances to be fair, and they still have some decent attacking talent - Pulisic, Aubameyang, Yarmalenko, Schurrle, Gotze - they just don't seem to have anyone driving or bossing the midfield
 
We play Dortmund after Arsenal away and before West Brom at home, 3 games Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday. I would think Poch will rotate quite a lot for Dortmund because, of those three games, the Dortmund one is by far the least important -- this is because 1. We are already through from the group stage and 2. We can still qualify top of the group if we win our last game, no matter what anyone else does, even if we lost 76-0 to Dortmund.

It won't be a "weak" team but there will be a lot of players getting a rest imo. By the time we play them, a rotated team could still include Son, Llorente, Wanyama, Rose/Davies, Aurier/Trippier, Sissoko -- not exactly putting out the under 18s there.

I trust in Poch to get it right anyway.
 
greatwhitenorf said:
There were pishy moans about qualifying for EL from Atletico Madrid players. I don't think Dortmund are much fussed either about getting third place if that slack 1-1 draw at home is anything to go by.

It's an interesting situation for Poch. I could easily understand some players wanting to play there since the Westfalenstadion has become a bit of an iconic venue in recent times. But it's a Tuesday game away after we play at Arsenal the Saturday before. After that, we face two league games in four days - home Saturday to always troublesome WBA, away to Leicester on Tuesday. We would be smart to rest some key players for Dortmund.


Dortmund are done like dinner in the group anyway. Do you honestly think Real Madrid are going to do anything other than hammer Apoel while we're at Dortmund? They only need a draw to clinch second, but after the scorching they've received in the media after being disembowelled at Wembley, they'll need to respond.

Dortmund will know this. They're home to a decent Schalke side the Saturday after playing us and, if they can get a result today against Bayern, would really want to be focusing on the Boundersleague title.
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It didn't go too well this evening.

I have to say I like Pulisic. I like us to go all in for him
 
Crushing home loss for Dortmund. Now they have Schalke steaming in to battle for third after they play us. Huge Ruhr derby match, one of Germany's biggest. Lose that game and they'll be dragged into a scrap with a handful of clubs looking to finish top six.
 
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Charlie said:
Pulisic's price should be the about the same as Dembele. Slightly less talented at this early age but massive commercial potential as he is the only true American "star."
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His ability to sell shirts means he'll be well over 100m. Amazing potential and seems set to be a top player for well over ten years.
 
Charlie said:
Pulisic's price should be the about the same as Dembele. Slightly less talented at this early age but massive commercial potential as he is the only true American "star."
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Nah. He'll only have two years on his contract left come next summer. Although a bidding war's very likely (and all the big guns will jump into that bidding war), I don't think the price will quite hit the heights of the Dembele transfer - I do think that his base price will be between 60 and 75m, though, which is still a massive amount of money.

And I think we should pay it. Everything we've done with our marketing in recent years has been targeted towards the North American market. Getting Pulisic would sew it up beautifully, and leave us in a dominant position there for as long as we can keep and develop Pulisic into the player he *can* be. And the player he *can* be is a very, very, very scary player indeed.
 
DubaiSpur said:
Nah. He'll only have two years on his contract left come next summer. Although a bidding war's very likely (and all the big guns will jump into that bidding war), I don't think the price will quite hit the heights of the Dembele transfer - I do think that his base price will be between 60 and 75m, though, which is still a massive amount of money.

And I think we should pay it. Everything we've done with our marketing in recent years has been targeted towards the North American market. Getting Pulisic would sew it up beautifully, and leave us in a dominant position there for as long as we can keep and develop Pulisic into the player he *can* be. And the player he *can* be is a very, very, very scary player indeed.
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It does seem a good fit on all fronts.

42mil is our record fee for Sanchez which bizarrely doesn't seem that much any more. The market is crazy and only going one way, so I think even €60mil for Pulisic might be wildly optimistic by the time it comes to bid for him. We won't win any tinkling competitions with the money bag clubs if they fancy him too. We just have to hope that Poch can use his jedi mind powers on him. We should also task agent Friedel to work on him now ;)
 
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I would also thin he would be over £100M due to his US superstar status, ability and competition to bring him in.

He is already the closest thing to a household name in the US.
 
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