Beren

Were they not a CL drop out as well? Or did they lose in the qualifiers and start in this comp? Went through the group stages etc Edit: In the Europa that is

Hope Benfica or Basel win - maybe Basel edge it because a CL dropout maybe doesn't deserve it.

Beating Sunderland will buy him many fans' favour going into the summer.

Good post. You'd go mad if you saw a portuguese league match Every week we have to face a side that plays with no striker, just a couple of quick guys with no intent to shoot whatsoever, just get some free-kicks, yellow cards and corners, the only real play those teams have. There's hardly more than 1 minute without the game stopping and every time it takes another minute to resume cause the guy will push his socks up and tie his shoes. And the ref will whistle any contact or if he's really lazy, any fall by any player. Zero intensity. I think that's our main problem, nobody wants/can run for 90 minutes so they all try to kill as much time as they can btw, 13th european semi-final for us, more than all the other portuguese clubs put together (12)

A small time Charlie attitude http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/newcastleunited/id/795?cc=5739 Entitled "Newcastle's Glorious Defeat"

Aren't all the semi finalists CL drop outs? Not Basel.

I've had time to consider things... ... ...motherfucking CL dropouts

Well, I don't mean now (otherwise Colo wouldn't be there either!). I just mean, when he looks less like he's detoxing from heroine and has his head screwed on right (and it hasn't for a while).

I do feel very fucking guilty taking out Gouff. He's been class.

Krul Debuchy Colo MYM Haidara HBA Sissoko Cabaye Santon Marv Cisse With Gouffran as our super-sub and interchangeability in the roles/positions obviously.

Very comfortable on the ball, good drive and attitude. Class act so far.

We didn't give ourselves our best chance of going through. It's easy to say "if we'd gone gung-ho for 90 they'd have shredded us on the counter", but to have as little midfield creativity as we did (ie. no Marv) for the first half did not work in our favour. It was essentially just 45 minutes of time-wasting on their behalf. Time-wasting in which they could have put the tie to bed earlier but for Krul.

Wonder if he's the type of personality who will beat himself up about missing that shot at the end...

Yup, they look a tidy outfit. All academic now, but glad we didn't draw them

Feel like breaking out the usual end of season threads now - player's season scorecards, where will we finish next season etc

This is what riles me tbh. It was obvious before the game. Don't understand how this wasn't foreseeable.

We squeezed past Atromitos to qualify. If that Maritimo clogger had scored a fairly presentable chance in the last five minutes, we would have been out in the easiest group the tournament had. We did not overachieve, you're just so used to us being s*** that you think this is the best we can do. We did tbf, majority of the footballing watching world had Anzhi as favourites against us. Yes, because we're in a relegation scrap and we can't play attacking football.

We squeezed past Atromitos to qualify. If that Maritimo clogger had scored a fairly presentable chance in the last five minutes, we would have been out in the easiest group the tournament had. We did not overachieve, you're just so used to us being shit that you think this is the best we can do.

Adebayor proper doesn't give a shit. Dolla dolla bill..

Cheered me up this.

LOVE IT

Fucking hell man Wanna give this brother a hug

Like that Basle keeper Sommer - looks like he just rolled in from California

Both looked clearly offside, but the ITV graphic showed an outstretched defender's leg on the far side which looked to be playing him on to be for the first goal. Only showed it once though, so not sure.