Race for Champions League - 2023/2024

[MotoMkali]

On 14/11/2023 at 20:37, Vive_La_Villa said:

I know it’s just how it is but I’m a bit pissed off we have Legia, Bournemouth away then City and Arsenal games within 9 days.  You can’t really rotate too much for any of these games and have a chance of winning. 

Realistically we need to rotate some for Bournemouth. Hopefully we can rotate in Moreno, Ramsey, Bailey, Tielemans for some of the team vs Bournemouth and maybe Carlos, Lenglet, and Duran depending on how emery is feeling. Bournemouth are 17th we should be able to beat them without Luiz or Watkins. 

[oishiiniku_uk]

30 minutes ago, MotoMkali said:

Realistically we need to rotate some for Bournemouth. Hopefully we can rotate in Moreno, Ramsey, Bailey, Tielemans for some of the team vs Bournemouth and maybe Carlos, Lenglet, and Duran depending on how emery is feeling. Bournemouth are 17th we should be able to beat them without Luiz or Watkins. 

Don't we only need a point from the two remaining conference league games? I'd be more tempted to rest players for the Legia home game and bring the heavy hitters on second half if we need them. Bournemouth looked like they were starting to click with Iraola's tactics against (an admittedly knackered) Newcastle - they pressed aggressively and created a lot of chances. I wouldn't take them too lightly. Both games are definitely an opportunity to give Moreno and Ramsey some minutes though.

[MotoMkali]

Just thinking about what we'd need to get to like 72 points, realistically you need like 25 points from the 18 games we play vs the other presumptive European teams. As you'd expect maybe like 47-50 points from the 20 games vs the bottom half.

Right now we are currently on 9/25 of those points vs Brighton, Chelsea and West Ham. But we also lost vs Liverpool and Newcastle so we need 16 points from 13 games.

Those games are

City (H), (A) 

Arsenal (H), (A)

Utd (H), (A) 

Spurs (H), (A) 

Liverpool (H) 

Newcastle (H) 

Chelsea (H), 

West Ham (A) 

Brighton (A)

Like realistically we can't go into the spurs game, the city game and arsenal game expecting to come away with only 1 point from those 3, arguably we can't even come away with just 3 points from those 3 given that it will be spurs at near their absolute weakest and our home games vs arsenal and city. Even if you say we expect to get 4pts vs Chelsea and Newcastle and get a win vs one of West Ham or Brighton you are still looking for 9 points vs in the 9 games vs Liverpool, Utd, Arsenal, City and Spurs. 

And since we are basically writing the 4 games vs arse and city off you are talking 9 points vs spurs (h), (a), Utd (h), (a) and Liverpool (H). Then if we talking only 1 pt vs spurs away? 8 from 4 games is a big ask. It's a lot more simple to get a result in one of the city and arsenal games and get a win vs spurs when they are seriously depleted. 

[MotoMkali]

1 minute ago, oishiiniku_uk said:

Don't we only need a point from the two remaining conference league games? I'd be more tempted to rest players for the Legia home game and bring the heavy hitters on second half if we need them. Bournemouth looked like they were starting to click with Iraola's tactics against (an admittedly knackered) Newcastle - they pressed aggressively and created a lot of chances. I wouldn't take them too lightly. Both games are definitely an opportunity to give Moreno and Ramsey some minutes though.

To go first and avoid a europa league dropout we need to beat legia. 

[colhint]

I don't know this bit, but as Legia beat us by one goal, what happens if we beat them by two. Is that it or does goal difference then come into it? Or is it we won the head to head we come top.

[oishiiniku_uk]

3 minutes ago, MotoMkali said:

To go first and avoid a europa league dropout we need to beat legia. 

Looking at the teams in the Europa League who will likely finish 3rd there aren't many that look that daunting. Obviously things can still change, but I'd fancy us over two legs against most teams in that competition bar the favourites (Liverpool, Atalanta, Sporting etc.).

[NeilS]

4 minutes ago, colhint said:

I don't know this bit, but as Legia beat us by one goal, what happens if we beat them by two. Is that it or does goal difference then come into it? Or is it we won the head to head we come top.

If we win by two goals we win the group as it is based on head to head results. Do we avoid a couple of extra matches if we win the group, or do we just play team from the Conference league instead?

We can also rotate against Mostar if we have the group sewn up by then, which will be additional rest for those who need it.

Edited November 16, 2023 by NeilS

[VillaChris]

On 14/11/2023 at 11:47, HanoiVillan said:

It'll be hard, but we managed to do it last season and will have something closer to our first choice side out than they do.  No guarantees of course but I'd hope we are competitive in this one. 

I mean last season down there we won with Robin Olsen in goal!

Basically we low blocked them to death in the first half and then as second went on they got frustrated and started leaving gaps which was perfectly exploited by Luiz running onto McGinn's lovely pass.

I don't see any reason why we wouldn't replicate those tactics again. Keep it 0-0 and we'll have more off the bench to change it second half.

It's a very winnable game for us although goes without saying a point is good aswell as then we'd be a point behind going to Bournemouth while they have Man. City away so I'd expect to be above them going into the Man. City game.

[VillaChris]

On 14/11/2023 at 21:50, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Isn't it only really Traore we have as an African player now? I could be totally wrong.

If you're mistakenly thinking about the likes of Diaby, he's French.

EDIT: Haven't read back through the thread, and just realised you probably mean an impact in our competitors!

 

We go to Everton in mid January. As it stands Gana and Doucoure will be away for them so that's a big chunk of their regular midfield and they have hardly any depth outside their first 11 so might have to play a kid there if they pick up other injuries in that period.

[VillaChris]

On 15/11/2023 at 05:54, Vive_La_Villa said:

With crowds we’ve beaten Spurs twice and that’s about it. I reckon we can beat them again but can see defeats to City and Arsenal with a bit of fatigue kicking in during a very tough week. 

It's a shame we haven't got Arsenal in the midweek. We were very close last season at VP given Bailey hit the underside of the bar in 88th minute and then they score with similar shot a few minutes later so very small margins.

Arsenal are still good but it was lost amongst the hullabaloo of the Newcastle goal they actually created very little there. Don't think Saka is anywhere near the level he was 12 months back either.

However does have a feel of us putting loads into Man. City game, losing to a late goal and then it will be a struggle to get intensity up for Arsenal game 70 hours later, will also have to mix up the team a bit given the quick turnaround.

Key is to beat Bournemouth, that's the must win game of the next four.

[VillaChris]

22 minutes ago, MotoMkali said:

To go first and avoid a europa league dropout we need to beat legia. 

If we beat Legia by two goals we win the group on the night so in that respect we could then rest pretty much everyone important for Brentford away by sending a second string to Bosnia as that's the one match in the season that will mean completely nothing with the result.

I think as it stands we've been o.k with the scheduling so far in europe and it hasn't been too taxing. Probably most difficult was going to Poland and then playing Chelsea away but we still won that one.

Win the group and we have a lighter load in February so things will only become intense again from March but you've got to be ready for that if you want to be seriously in contention for trophies.

[NeilS]

18 minutes ago, NeilS said:

If we win by two goals we win the group as it is based on head to head results. Do we avoid a couple of extra matches if we win the group, or do we just play team from the Conference league instead?

We can also rotate against Mostar if we have the group sewn up by then, which will be additional rest for those who need it.

Uefa Website regarding play off round in Europa Conference League

"The UEFA Europa Conference League knockout round play-offs involves 16 teams: the eight runners-up from the Europa Conference League group stage and the eight third-placed teams from the UEFA Europa League group stage.

The winners of the eight play-off ties advance to March's Europa Conference League round of 16, where they join the eight group winners."

Ok to quote myself, it looks like winning the group will save us two additional matches against the third placed teams from the Europa League. So winning by two clear goals against Legia Warsaw would effectively save us three matches later on as we then have the option to rotate heavily against Mostar. Therefore I think to aid us in the race for the top four spots and Champions League qualification it would make sense to go with a strong line up against Legia Warsaw, as we then have no further european matches until March.

[turvontour]

38 minutes ago, oishiiniku_uk said:

Looking at the teams in the Europa League who will likely finish 3rd there aren't many that look that daunting. Obviously things can still change, but I'd fancy us over two legs against most teams in that competition bar the favourites (Liverpool, Atalanta, Sporting etc.).

But we don't want 2 extra games in Jan. We avoid that by finishing top.

[R.Bear]

1 hour ago, MotoMkali said:

Just thinking about what we'd need to get to like 72 points, realistically you need like 25 points from the 18 games we play vs the other presumptive European teams. As you'd expect maybe like 47-50 points from the 20 games vs the bottom half.

Right now we are currently on 9/25 of those points vs Brighton, Chelsea and West Ham. But we also lost vs Liverpool and Newcastle so we need 16 points from 13 games.

Those games are

City (H), (A) 

Arsenal (H), (A)

Utd (H), (A) 

Spurs (H), (A) 

Liverpool (H) 

Newcastle (H) 

Chelsea (H), 

West Ham (A) 

Brighton (A)

Like realistically we can't go into the spurs game, the city game and arsenal game expecting to come away with only 1 point from those 3, arguably we can't even come away with just 3 points from those 3 given that it will be spurs at near their absolute weakest and our home games vs arsenal and city. Even if you say we expect to get 4pts vs Chelsea and Newcastle and get a win vs one of West Ham or Brighton you are still looking for 9 points vs in the 9 games vs Liverpool, Utd, Arsenal, City and Spurs. 

And since we are basically writing the 4 games vs arse and city off you are talking 9 points vs spurs (h), (a), Utd (h), (a) and Liverpool (H). Then if we talking only 1 pt vs spurs away? 8 from 4 games is a big ask. It's a lot more simple to get a result in one of the city and arsenal games and get a win vs spurs when they are seriously depleted. 

Here's some advice. Trying to work out what points a team will get from x games and what they'll need etc never works out. It's a total waste of time, as is this post.

[Zatman]

1 hour ago, oishiiniku_uk said:

Looking at the teams in the Europa League who will likely finish 3rd there aren't many that look that daunting. Obviously things can still change, but I'd fancy us over two legs against most teams in that competition bar the favourites (Liverpool, Atalanta, Sporting etc.).

yes but we also dont play that round if we win the group. so 2 midweeks rest

[MotoMkali]

1 hour ago, R.Bear said:

Here's some advice. Trying to work out what points a team will get from x games and what they'll need etc never works out. It's a total waste of time, as is this post.

Not really. It's pretty relevant that we have 13 games remaining against the teams you expect to finish top half. And we need to get average over a point per game in those 13 games. We'd make it very difficult for ourselves if we don't get at least 1 win in the 3 upcoming games. 

[oishiiniku_uk]

1 hour ago, turvontour said:

But we don't want 2 extra games in Jan. We avoid that by finishing top.

 

1 hour ago, Zatman said:

yes but we also dont play that round if we win the group. so 2 midweeks rest

Gotcha! I'd still go stronger in the Bournemouth game!

[Zatman]

As for Champions League. I think Unai has probably set a points target for the season. I think if we get 70 points we will finish top 5 and are already on for that target

After Arsenal in December we dont play any of City, Arsenal or Liverpool again until after Easter. If and a big If we are still close to them by Easter we might consider ourselves in the title race.

We will play a big role either way in the title race if there is one

[HanoiVillan]

2 hours ago, oishiiniku_uk said:

Looking at the teams in the Europa League who will likely finish 3rd there aren't many that look that daunting. Obviously things can still change, but I'd fancy us over two legs against most teams in that competition bar the favourites (Liverpool, Atalanta, Sporting etc.).

Sure, but if you're favouring dropping players for that game for rotation, hard to see why you'd not be disappointed with two high-stakes extra games in March. 

Beating Legia is important. 

[oishiiniku_uk]

6 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Sure, but if you're favouring dropping players for that game for rotation, hard to see why you'd not be disappointed with two high-stakes extra games in March. 

Beating Legia is important. 

I just feel like keeping momentum in the league is so important at the moment. If we can take 4/6 points from the next two games then we're in such a good position for the home games against Man City and Arsenal. As much as it would be exciting to go as far as possible in the Conference League I think we have a real opportunity to do something special in the PL this season. So if it were a case of picking one game to prioritize, I would go for Bournemouth. I think we will go strong in both though, so it's kind of a moot point.

Edited November 16, 2023 by oishiiniku_uk