Ceemo

Fulll-times in the early kick-offs: Sturm Graz 4-1 Slovan Bratislava Union St Gilloise 2-2 Eintracht Frankfurt Molde 3-2 Legia Warsaw Olympiacos 1-0 Ferencvaros A triple sub at half-time for Legia spurred them on to a comeback as Molde got deeper and deeper and now Legia are possibly favourites to come through. Saint-Gilloise improved after the break and got a deserved equaliser. A late red card halted that however and in the end Frankfurt will be happy enough with the result. Strum Graz are pretty much through and Olympiacos picked up a narrow win against Ferencvaros with it still all to be played for next week.

Just to confirm, we will face one of the winners of these 8 ties. Half-times in the early kick-offs: Sturm Graz 2-1 Slovan Bratislava Union St Gilloise 1-2 Eintracht Frankfurt Molde 3-0 Legia Warsaw Olympiacos 0-0 Ferencvaros Legia are getting absolutely walloped by Molde and they have been unable to deal with their counter attack. Some poor keeping by Tobiaz hasn't helped. Frankfurt have looked impressive in Belgium. St Gilloise lead the Belgian League by 8pts but Frankfurt have been on top throughout and only for a silly backpass, they would have been more comfortable.

Fixtures today: Molde vs Legia - 17:45 Olympiacos vs Ferencvaros - 17:45 Sturm Graz vs Slovan Bratislava - 17:45 Union St-Gilloise vs Eintracht Frankfurt - 17:45 Ajax vs Bodo Glimt - 20:00 Maccabi Haifa vs Gent - 20:00 Real Betis vs Dinamo Zagreb - 20:00 Servette vs Ludogorets - 20:00 I see that TNT are running their goals show tonight that they normally for the Champions League group stage which will combine the Europa League ties as well.

Great to see him back around the boys again and he has been presumably given the all clear to begin getting the boots back on and train again. Such a tough injury to come back from as much mentally as physically as the isolation away from the team group can't have been easy, especially since he is the captain.

Ernest Muci who scored 3 goals against us this season for Legia in both ties home and away has joined Besiktas for €10 million. Looked a very decent player against us.

Sin bin only works when the clock stops which is how it works for rugby. This won't work in football as once a player gets a blue card, another player will just fake an injury and get treatment while the time ticks on.

Aston Villa have released their squad for the rest of the Conference League. Rules are that you could register up to 3 new players for the next stage. Villa have added the new signings in Gauci and Rogers and removed Traore and Dendoncker. Iroegbunam has been selected ahead of Chambers who has been omitted. No places also for Kaine Kesler-Hayden or Omari Kellyman. Goalkeepers: Emiliano Martinez, Joe Gauci, Robin Olsen, Filip Marschall (B), James Wright (B) Defenders: Matty Cash, Diego Carlos, Ezri Konsa, Lucas Digne, Pau Torres, Alex Moreno, Clement Lenglet, Ben Chrisene (B), Sil Swinkels (B), Jayden Barber (B), Josh Feeney (B), Aaron O’Reilly (B), Frankie Ealing (B), Finley Munroe (B) Midfielders: Douglas Luiz, John McGinn, Youri Tielemans, Jacob Ramsey, Tim Iroegbunam, Boubacar Kamara, Edward Rowe (B), Taylor-Jay Hart (B), Ajani Burchall (B), Tommi O’Reilly (B), Travis Patterson (B), Kyrie Pierre (B), Kadan Young (B) Forwards: Ollie Watkins, Moussa Diaby, Nicolo Zaniolo, Jhon Duran, Morgan Rogers, Leon Bailey The competition returns next week with the two legs on February 15th and February 22nd. Villa enter at the Last 16 stage. The draw for that is set for Friday February 23rd at 12:00pm with the first leg to be played on March 7th and the second leg the following week.

Can't do any deals with Vitoria until at least this time next as year as part of an agreement with UEFA over both being allowed to be in the Conference League. Off to Plymouth now it seems. Obviously the relationship between the two clubs is still good after Azaz and Kesler-Hayden.

Stopped training after suffering another setback with his ankle injury. Not good. Not good at all.

Move to MK Dons confirmed. Will be interesting to see how he will get on.

Definitely need to be focusing on signing the odd home grown player here or there as we have 7 at the moment and it would be 6 if Chambers leaves (Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Mings, Ramsey and Watkins) which would restrict the amount of players we could have in squads for Europe and the Premier League.

Thing that gets me is why is it £105 million over 3 years? Why that random figure and not £110 million or £120 million for instance, it just seems like a completely random number. Perhaps you could do it on a sliding scale from where you finished in the previous season. If you finished top, you can only lose £10 million a year or whatever figure you want to start at and then slide it across the league where the promoted clubs and the clubs that just avoided relegation can make a bigger loss without punishment. Of course this would screw Villa at the moment for instance but you have to look at the whole picture of the game. Results can fluctuate throughout certain seasons and some teams can outperform others but for instance you could be put into a coma for 10 years and you would still have a pretty good chance of predicting the top 6 then, and that's not good. The reason that these rules were brought in was about protecting clubs, but that has to be balanced with making it more competitive. Perhaps requiring owners to put funds into escrow similar to the NFL can prevent owners putting debt onto their club or using the club's own money can offer protection towards that and then you can start to bring in pro-competitive rules. You don't want oil states dominating the game, but you also don't want a glass ceiling protecting the elite. There surely has to be a balance somewhere.

Yep his 4th of the season. Now needs to be 10 to be banned.

First Saturday 3pm kick-off since the middle of September which is pretty ridiculous.

Ngonge compares a bit to Bailey for me in the little bits I've seen of him. Good dribbler but I fear a bit lightweight for the Premier League. His father Michel played for Watford from 1998-2000 under Graham Taylor.

Knockout Round Play-off Draw Sturm Graz vs Slovan Bratislava Servette vs Ludogorets Union Saint-Gilloise vs Eintracht Frankfurt Real Betis vs Dinamo Zagreb Olympiacos vs Ferencvaros Ajax vs Bodo/Glimt Molde vs Legia Warsaw Maccabi Haifa vs Gent So I guess we are looking for a few big teams to knock each other out. Frankfurt and Union St-Gilloise is the standout tie. The Belgian are 8pts clear a the top of the Belgian League and so that should be a good one. Ajax vs Bodo/Glimt is a good one also. The Norwegians have been fantastic over the past few years and they could win that tie. Real Betis got a nice draw and nothing particularly interesting in the other ties.

https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaconferenceleague/draws/2024/2001793/

Prize money so far amongst the English clubs this season: One of the almost evil stealth gains by the top European clubs was the extra money by having a higher UEFA coefficient, which means that Man United earned £28.4 million from it compared to Newcastle's £4.5 million, despite Man United finishing bottom of their group.

Does this essentially mean that the club is valued now at approximately £800 million? Not bad considering that NSWE originally bought the club for £30 million from Xia in 2018 and then paid the unpaid debt to Lerner of £30 million upon promotion the following year.

So just lucking at the schedule then around those knockout ties. Avoiding that play-off round means a full weeks rest from Man United to the Fulham to the Forest fixtures in February. Things ramp up if Villa in particular progress in the FA Cup. You are looking at: 24-Feb - Forest (home) 28-Feb - FA Cup Fifth Round 02-Mar - Luton (away) 07-Mar - Conference League 10-Mar - Spurs (home) 14-Mar - Conference League 17-Mar - West Ham (away)

No we could actually get Legia again. Last season Slovan Bratislava and Basel were in the same group and yet played each other again in the Last 16 so all options are open apart from the fellow group winners.

Confirmed: Round of 16 Aston Villa Fiorentina PAOK Fenerbahce Club Brugge Viktoria Plzen Maccabi Tel Aviv Lille Round of 32 Legia Warsaw Ferencvaros Eintracht Frankfurt Ludogorets Bodo/Glimt Dinamo Zagreb Gent Slovan Bratislava Union Saint-Gilloise Maccabi Haifa Servette Molde Sturm Graz Real Betis Ajax Olympiacos The bottom 2 sets of 8 teams will be drawn tomorrow and Villa will be drawn against one of those winners in February.