Way way WAY too early to start building hopes. It's still only November and Chel53a are still only 13 pts off fourth, dammit. Never forget the season A'nal came back to knock us out of CL when they were 13 pts behind as late as something like February. We've had too many crushing crashes at the death to even begin hoping at this early stage.
Continuing to be under the radar...
http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/nov/11/premier-league-team-season-so-far
Emirates Marketing Project are already in the next round, Man Utd are probably favourites to progress from their group, Chelsea are also probably favourites to progress, Arsenal of course need results to go in their favour. I would say that are odds against at the moment, but there is no reason why they can't beat Zagreb and then Olympiakos by 2 clear goals.... Hopefully they won't however!England increased their lead again today and are now 3.6 ahead of Italy. Next summer England will lose 3.9 points more than Italy and a couple more each of the following seasons, so we need the other teams (especially those in the CL) to do well.
Emirates Marketing Project are already in the next round, Man Utd are probably favourites to progress from their group, Chel53a are also probably favourites to progress, Arsenal of course need results to go in their favour. I would say that are odds against at the moment, but there is no reason why they can't beat Zagreb and then Olympiakos by 2 clear goals.... Hopefully they won't however!
Juventus are odds on to join Emirates Marketing Project in the next round. Roma are probably favourites to progress from their group as both them and Leverkusen have to play Barca and BATE (who are the groups whipping boys) with Roma having a point advantage over Leverkusen currently. The only glimmer that Leverkusen have is that Roma go away to Barca and a Barca win will guarantee them top spot in the group. Leverkusen would then host Barcelona in the last game with Barca already having won the group.
In the Europa League both ourselves and Liverpool will be favourites to go through, but both of us still have work to do and neither club may end up topping their group (which will mean a more difficult next match).
Of the Italian clubs - Napoli have already qualified and pretty much guaranteed top spot, Lazio have all but qualified and also look like they will take top spot. Fiorentina look odds on to qualify and might still finish top.
Southampton and (especially) West Ham were a big let down for England in terms of coefficient points
Its actually hard to argue with the individuals selected in that team, its encouraging that we don't have a single standout player, just highlights that we are a team!
What i'm not liking at the moment is the slight over-hyping of Alli, I don't mean to say that the kid isn't brilliant, but part of me feels he's being promoted that little bit more in the media as hes a young, talented English midfielder.
I wonder if ourselves and Liverpool could use the situation to our advantage by getting on the EPLs case about fixture congestion around our EL matches - It's in the leagues interest as much as it is ours now
I think they are already manufacturing the black armbands just in case they don't get special dispensation.the fact Liverpool are in that situation now will probably swing them into action on it anyway
I wonder if ourselves and Liverpool could use the situation to our advantage by getting on the EPLs case about fixture congestion around our EL matches - It's in the leagues interest as much as it is ours now
Can i just say that i HATE this thread appearing before February!
However, whilst this monstrouserty of a thread is open can i say that many Gooners i know were impressed with us when they saw us on Sunday.
Yes they felt that they could have nicked it in the end but said that we could have been out of sight by then and felt lucky to get a point. They were gushing about how Pochettino has us playing.
They were then split into two camps after that:
1st - we have 4th there for us if we REALLY want it
2nd - we are showing more ability to grow than Manure and could finish ahead of them and eventually closer to themselves and City
BOTH groups said the likely thing was that neither would happen because in the spring we'd "mess up our run-in as we usually do"...
It's also interesting to compare this thread with this one: http://www.glory-glory.co.uk/commun...s-closed-where-do-you-think-well-finish.7944/
Emirates Marketing Project are already in the next round, Man Utd are probably favourites to progress from their group, Chel53a are also probably favourites to progress, Arsenal of course need results to go in their favour. I would say that are odds against at the moment, but there is no reason why they can't beat Zagreb and then Olympiakos by 2 clear goals.... Hopefully they won't however!
Juventus are odds on to join Emirates Marketing Project in the next round. Roma are probably favourites to progress from their group as both them and Leverkusen have to play Barca and BATE (who are the groups whipping boys) with Roma having a point advantage over Leverkusen currently. The only glimmer that Leverkusen have is that Roma go away to Barca and a Barca win will guarantee them top spot in the group. Leverkusen would then host Barcelona in the last game with Barca already having won the group.
In the Europa League both ourselves and Liverpool will be favourites to go through, but both of us still have work to do and neither club may end up topping their group (which will mean a more difficult next match).
Of the Italian clubs - Napoli have already qualified and pretty much guaranteed top spot, Lazio have all but qualified and also look like they will take top spot. Fiorentina look odds on to qualify and might still finish top.
Southampton and (especially) West Ham were a big let down for England in terms of coefficient points
England's advantage is having more CL teams. They get more points per win AND they get 5 points for qualifying for the knockout stages. EL teams get nothing. All 4 CL teams going through means 20 points. Divided by 8 that's 2.5. If both Italian clubs go through they get 10 points. Divided by 6 that is 1.67. Arsenal finishing second is a big plus. They'll never win it, we won't have to worry about them winning the EL and England get more points.
Wow, it's almost like the whole thing is setup to reward those already being rewarded by it.
I think it seems like a pretty decent system... Germany overtook Italy after years of it being very similar, well deserved and came at a time when the German league actually seemed to overtake the Italian in terms of quality, probably with a season or two of "lag time".
I wouldn't want to see a system of constant fluctuation where it changed from season to season myself.
I think it seems like a pretty decent system... Germany overtook Italy after years of it being very similar, well deserved and came at a time when the German league actually seemed to overtake the Italian in terms of quality, probably with a season or two of "lag time".
I wouldn't want to see a system of constant fluctuation where it changed from season to season myself.
all true, and I'm not sure a ranked system would work any better another way, but it does make the barrier of entry higher