The Fun Factory

The only real bad performances in the league since the turn of the year were Newcastle and Spurs. United annoyed me as no way we should have lost that one. 

We are right in it, scrapping for every point.  You can see the togetherness of the squad and that can really help down the stretch, plus having a elite manager. All to play for.

Do you want to bet against us? Feck the rest of them.

Emery is doing a lot of thinking at the moment due to the lack of midfield options with Kamarra out and now Mcginn suspended. He will continue to tinker with it until the balance is sorted. Trust the process.

I am confused which one is the shit player now Rogers or Zaniolo?

He is what he is a young prospect. Emery must rate him given the two starts in a week.

I think a full pre season under Emery will improve him a lot. 

1 minute ago, Pinebro said:

It's just a quarter final

Man Utd being way too emotional

Shows how far they have fallen. Under Fergie it would be just another win and into the next round. 

Just wait for United to get Coventry. It's nailed on. They would want another Manchester final.

Seemed to have come round quickly, I don't think  I have recovered fully from Ajax yet. Better put a reminder on my phone to get a ticket.

Lads its Tottenham

I don't think Eddie Howe is that safe at Newcastle. 8th may get europe but I think they may struggle to get even that. Potter maybe in the summer?

Bonkers game. Cov deserved it. O'Hare setting up the winner.

1 hour ago, striker said:

Tough draw that. Will Konsa be back for the quarter? When is Kamara due back?

Only if the conference league does a league cup in its first year by having the final in September the following season.

4 hours ago, turvontour said:

Is there an explanation for the lack of second half injury time because surely it would have been about 7 minutes with all the goals, injuries and sending off.

Does the ref have to ask the team that's losing if they forfeit essentially?

The game and tie was over and we all wanted to get home.

10 minutes ago, JoshVilla said:

Exactly this. People (usually blosers and 12 year old fans on twitter from other clubs) like to shit on the Conference League and say it's not a proper trophy, but there's some good teams in there. This is a proper competition now.

I don't think there is a huge difference in quality between the conference and europa league, certainly for the group winners. As shown that ultimately only one side  dropping down in the Europa league  has reached the quarters.

Would have preferred the home tie in the second leg but it's an ok draw.

3 minutes ago, rjw63 said:

Elmo!

That was a quick booking

5 minutes ago, 479Villan said:

Lord make the wankfest stop

Sorry just felt a bit of sick down my throat.

5 minutes ago, fightoffyour said:

West Ham against ze Germans again

Mark Noble looked a bulldog chewing a wasp after that draw.

I have only realised that next season all uefa competitions are moving to this stupid 8 game first round so will be just as many games in the Europa. A lot of games to manage through.

35 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

I'm becoming more of the opinion that something snaps somewhere which stops it being completely in Sunak's control. 

The earliest it will be is late October (Halloween would be funny). There is no way these Tory MP'S are going to waste their last summer recess jollys campaigning for a doomed landside defeat. Gives them more time to find a new job.

Lille ground is surprisingly large, bigger than PSG I would guess with only Marseille and Lyon larger?

I just watched a few things online on Fratton Park, Portsmouth home ground. They are doing some incremental work on the ground and have pushed capacity up by a couple of thousands by re-profiling seats and squeezing in a few more, and at  about 10-20 million cost.  It is fairly low wattage compared to the sweeping grand plans first announced but I wouldn't be surprised if we tried to do something similar at parts of Villa Park to add this extra 2.5 K capacity that has been mentioned. 

I think Fenerbache would be the hardest trip in terms of distance traveled, quality of opposition, and intimidating away leg. But even wth that if we play like we can do we should go through.

So I make that 7 out of the 8 group winners ultimately going through to the quarters with only Tel Aviv going out after letting a 4-1 first-leg away lead slip. So that shows that the conference league has a reasonable depth to it. It is also the most diverse competition with 7 countries left in the draw,  with half of the sides from Eastern Europe, if you include Greece and Turkey in that definition. Compared to the money-making behemoth that is the Champions League which only has 4 countries represented left, and there are 5 within the Europa League all of which are Western European countries.  So the competition is doing what it is set out to do.

1 hour ago, Marka Ragnos said:

Has anyone said how ****-ing incredible it is to have this forum topic -- to be talking quarter-finals in Europe, to be speculatin' and prognosticatin' on whether we would prefer Fiorentina or Lille or Olympiakos (none of them, please!!!!!).

So happy. This is golden this year -- golden.

Ahem to that.

Plzen or Brugge please. 

Looked decent tonight, though Ajax nowadays perhaps more of a championship type opposition he is used to? Interesting to see him play more in a central role behind Watkins. Did a few decent through balls and I thought the yellow was harsh. A good learning experience for him.

Bonkers player. Put in a better peformance than the last time I saw him live for more than the usual 5 min run out against Boro away.